^/.zr 


LECTUEES 


ON 


THE  LORD'S  PRAYER. 


uV 


WILLIAM  E.   WILLIAMS. 


«( Petitions,  brief  in  the  iK-ordino:,  but  withal  large  in  the  meaning.     Insomuch  that  this 

Prayer  can  scarce  be  exponndoil  completely  bi"  all  the  tlieolngians  that  are  tn  the  worlj.  Id 
tlie«e  *  *  *  ere  asked  all  the  things  which  are  needful  unto  us  in  this  present  life  and  in  that 
which  19  to  come." — Old  iValdenslun  dots  on  t}e  L>or(f<  Pruyer.^'^  Ghsa  Pater  Noster." 
Legtr  i.  43 


NEW    YORK: 

ROBERT   CARTER   AND   BROTHERS, 
530  Broadway. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  (ingress,  in  the  year  185!,  bf 
WILLIAM    K.   WILLIAMS, 

.C  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  the  State  of  New  Vorlt 


TEREO TYPED   BY   THOMAS    B.    SMITH, 
216   WILLIAM   STREET     N    T. 


TO 

THE  CHURCH  AND  CONGREGATION 

IN    AMITY    STREET,    NEW    YORK, 

WHOM,  EN  THE  MINISTRY   OJ'  THE  GOSPEL, 

rr  HAS   LONG   BEEN  THE   HONOR   OF  THE   SUBSCRIBER  TO  SEBVB, 

THESE    IMPERFECT 

DISCOURSES, 

DISCUSSING     A     DUTY     OF     PF.RPETUAL     OBLIGATIOK, 
AND    A    THEME    OF    EXIIAUSTLESS    RICHNESS, 

^r  e   Kns  cril)  eU 

BT  AN   ATTACHED    AND    GRATEFUL    PA8T0B. 


PREFACE. 


As  the  utterance  of  "Want,  and  the  aspiration  of  Hope, 
prayer  would  seem  the  prompting  of  human  instincts,  no  less 
than  the  requirement  of  Divine  Eevelation.  To  urge,  to  guide 
and  to  warrant  it,  the  Book  of  God  furnishes  us  alike  with  com- 
mands, with  promises  and  with  examples.  Chief  amongst  these 
last,  stands  the  form  of  supplication  given  by  our  Lord,  on  one 
occasion,  to  his  disciples  and  the  multitude  with  them  who 
heard  the  Sermon  upon  the  Mount ;  and  on  another,  with  some 
changes  of  form,  received  again  by  his  followers,  when  they 
asked  from  Him  such  instructions  on  prayer  as  were  given  by 
John  the  Baptist  to  his  disciples.  The  treatises  which  have 
been  written  in  comment  upon  the  Lord's  Prayer,  as  it  has 
generally  been  called,  would  form  of  themselves  no  inconsider- 
able library.  Nearly  every  system  of  theology  ever  written 
has  incorporated,  into  its  texture,  a  minute  and  regular  analysis 
of  this  brief  but  most  comprehensive  supplication.  Luther,  and 
Barrow,  and  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  Archbishop  Leighton  have 
written  upon  it ;  and  the  treatises,  especially  of  the  first  and 
the  last,  are  marked  with  peculiar  richness  and  excellence.  In 
the  commentary  upon  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  of  the  illustrious 
German  scholar  Tholuck,  one  of  the  finest  specimens  of  learned 
and  devout  exposition  in  our  times,  this  prayer  is  of  course  made 
to  pass  under  review  ;  and  it  is  also  the  subject  of  several  separate 
discourses  amongst  his  published  Sermons.  It  is  taken  up,  with 
yet  greater  fulness,  by  another  contemporary  Christian  and  scholai 


Vlll  PREFACE, 

of  tbat  countr}-,  Stier,  in  his  valuable  work  on  the  Discourses  of 
the  Saviour,  one  of  the  fruits  of  tbat  hopeful  ai>d  blessed  re-action 
which,  under  the  auspices  of  great  learning  and  sound  judgment, 
has  been  commenced  in  that  land  of  profound  research.  It  is 
a  re-action  against  the  proud  inroads  of  a  proscriptive  neology 
and  a  critical  destructiveness,  which  seemed  once  to  assume  that 
whatever  had  been  believed  was  in  consequence  incredible,  and 
that  the  New  and  the  True  were  always  for  the  hour  convertible 
terms.  Of  this  our  Lord's  framework  for  the  petitions  of  his 
Church,  Stier  has  happily  said,  that  whilst  from  its  brief  simplicity, 
it  fits  the  lips  of  childhood  in  the  first  stammerings  of  devotion, 
it  displays  an  infinite  fulness  also,  which  the  convened  wisdom  of 
all  the  theologians  of  all  the  churches  could  never  exhaust,  much 
less  surpass. 

It  is  indeed  one  of  the  marks  of  the  divine  authorship  of  this 
brief  document,  that  fitting  as  it  does  all  hearts,  and  adapted 
as  it  is  to  all  times  and  scenes,  it  yet  preserves  a  freshness  and 
richness  which  the  new  emergencies  and  the  new  applications  of 
each  successive  century  seem  only  the  more  to  enhance  and 
illustrate.  And  this  feature  of  the  prayer  must  be  pleaded  as 
an  apology,  for  what  might  else  seem  rashness  in  sending  forth 
a  new  series  of  remarks  upon  a  portion  of  scripture  already  so 
fully  discussed,  and  by  men  of  highest  renown  and  worth  in  the 
churches.  Amidst  all  its  perpetual  and  immovable  Unity,  the 
Lord's  Prayer  lias  its  boundless  and  inexhaustible  Variety.  In 
the  life  of  every  human  being,  how  much  there  is  of  sameness 
in  the  journey  from  the  same  cradle  to  the  same  grave ;  and 
jet  if  written  in  detail,  no  two  pilgrimages  would  be  found  in 
all  things  coincident,  each  having  its  own  peculiar  and  nove. 
and  characteristic  incidents.  And  as  every  life  has  thus  its 
freshness, — so  the  application, — to  the  life  of  each  individual 
and  to  the  social  life  of  each  nation  and  of  each  century, — of 
the  language  furnished  here  by  the  great  Ruler  of  that  life, — ■ 


PREFACE.  iX 

will  03  found  to  reflect  back  ever  new  lights  upon  the  oracles 
which  He  has  given,  and  to  produce  new  and  iiTefragable  evi- 
dences, that  the  Maker  of  man's  heart  and  the  divine  Orderer 
of  man's  history  was  the  Framer  of  this  petition.  It  pro\-es  the 
all-pervading  Omniscience  of  its  authorship,  by  so  wondrously 
bending  itself,  with  a  divine  pliability,  to  all  man's  new  wants ; 
and  by  its  bringing  within  the  compass  of  a  few,  brief  sentences, 
11,-^t  only  the  interests  and  necessities  of  a  world,  but  the  crav- 
ings and  destinies  of  the  race  alike  for  Time  and  for  Eternity. 

As  an  instance  that  Time  and  Change  only  find  new  and  out- 
gushing  richness  in  this  utterance  of  our  Redeemer,  making  it 
still  a  stream  of  fresh  and  living  waters  to  our  own  age  after  the 
lapse  of  eighteen  centuries,  we  may  allude  to  two  recent  com- 
ments upon  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  one  appearing  in  France,  and 
the  other  in  Great  Britain,  Coquerel,  an  eloquent  Protestant 
preacher  of  Paris,  and  a  member  of  the  Constituent  Assembly 
which  shaped  the  last  political  constitution  of  that  country, 
published  not  long  since  his  discourses  on  this  portion  of  our 
Lord's  teachings,*  with  an  evident  bearing,  throughout  his  re- 
marks, upon  the  theories  of  social  reform  that  have  been  so 
eagerly  and  boldly  presented  by  some  of  the  thinkers  of  his 
nation.  Holding  unhappily  some  views  of  vital  religious  doc- 
trine, which  Calvin  and  Beza,  Claude  and  Dumoulin,  the  ear- 
lier glories  of  the  French  Protestants,  would  denounce  as  por- 
tentous and  fetal  heresies  ;  he  exerts  himself  against  some  of  the 
pocial  novelties  of  his  age  with  zeal  and  energy,  and  whilst 
discussing  the  petition  for  daily  bread  has  evidently  Proudhon 
and  other  contemporary  schemers  in  full  and  hostile  survey. 
Himself  an  innovator  in  theology,  as  the  early  reformers  v/ould 
hold  him,  he  shrinks  appalled  from  some  of  the  political  and 
civil  encroachments  of  the  fierce  and  rugged  theorists  around  him. 

*  "L'Oraison  Dominicale,  Huit  Sermons  par   Alhanase  Coquerel 
Pftrie.    ffierbuliez.     1860." 


X  PREFACE. 

On  the  otLer  hand  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Maurice,  a  scholar  of  the 
Established  Church  of  England,  attached  probably  rather  to  the 
party  of  Authority  and  Order  than  to  that  of  Zeal  and  Reform, 
sympathizing  more  with  those  called  generally  the  Orthodox 
High  Churchmen  than  with  those  whose  usual  designation  is  the 
Evangelical  party, — and  holding  besides  his  Professorship  in 
King's  College,  London,  the  Lectureship  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  an 
appointment  connecting  him  with  the  bar  and  bench  of  England, 
and  one  held  before  him  by  a  Warburton  and  a  Heber, — 
has,  notwithstanding  all  these  bonds  to  the  Established  and  the 
Ancient,  in  a  recent  volume  of  discourses  on  this  same  prayer,* 
manifested  throughout  a  disposition  to  appreciate  and  meet,  far 
as  may  be,  the  schemes  and  claims  of  those  modern  reformers 
who  hold  that  Poverty  and  Labor  now  demand  grave  and  com- 
prehensive measures  of  relief.  In  an  earlier  book  of  much 
ability  on  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  moulded  probably  with  some 
reminiscences  of  Moehler's  great  work  on  Symbolism,  he  had 
endeavored  to  place  the  claims  of  Episcopacy  and  the  Establish- 
ment on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  the  various  bodies  holding 
aloft  the  standard  of  Nonconformity,  on  the  other  hand,  in  a 
position  where  each  might  better  comprehend  the  arguments 
and  wishes  of  the  other.  It  was  an  endeavor  to  do  in  tho 
interests  of  Episcopacy  as  against  Nonconformity,  what  Moehler 
had  sought  to  accomplish  in  behalf  of  Romanism,  as  against 
the  various  forms  of  Protestantism.  The  same  traits  show 
themselves  in  his  more  recent  and  briefer  volume  on  the  Lord's 
Prayer ;  but  the  party  -whose  claims  he,  in  this  later  work,  at 
times  parries,  and  at  other  times  adopts  and  expounds  under 
new  and  Christian  forms  of  expression,  is  that  of  Social  Reform. 
The  British  and  the  French  thinker,  then,  writing  apparently 

*  "  The  Lord's  Prayer.  Nine  Sermons  preached  in  the  Chapel  of 
Lincoln's  Inn,  by  Frederick  Denison  M  aurice,  M.A.,  Chaplain  of  Lincoln's 
Ion.    London.    Parker.     1848." 


PREFACE.  XI 

rithout  any  reference  to  the  works  each  of  the  other,  and  witb 
few  or  no  doctrinal  sympathies,  show  how  this  simple  prayer  of 
our  Lord,  given  eighteen  centuries  ago  to  Jewish  peasants,  on  a 
hill-side  in  Palestine,  is  regarded,  in  the  two  great  nations  of 
modern  Europe,  as  shedding  new  and  authoritative  light,  on 
the  novel  and  startling  controversies  of  a  revolutionary  age. 
And  such  indeed  is  its  power,  ancient  but  fresh,  like  the  light 
streaming  to-day  anew,  from  the  same  sun  which  shone  on  that 
hill-side  on  the  day  when  our  Lord  first  gave  this  form  of  prayer. 
Successive  generations  may  thus  bask  in  the  fresh  showers  of  light 
continually  poured  from  the  same  eternal  Sun  of  Righteousness. 

And  as  still  new  might  and  ever-freshening  light  are  to  be 
evolved  from  this,  God's  word,  in  the  future ;  so  is  it  impossible, 
in  reviewing  the  past,  to  overvalue  and  exaggerate  the  amount 
of  healing  and  restraining  energy  which  this  single  prayer  has 
already  shed  forth  on  the  heart,  the  home,  the  sanctuary,  the 
school,  the  nation  and  the  race.  How  many  a  snare  has  it 
broken  ;  how  many  a  sorrow  has  it  soothed ;  how  many  a  gath- 
ering cloud  of  evil  has  it  averted  or  scattered.  Could  we  write 
the  history  of  mankind,  as  it  will  by  the  Judge  of  all  be  read 
in  the  Last  Day,  how  much  of  earth's  freedom  and  order  and 
peace,  would  be  found  to  have  distilled,  through  quiet  and  se- 
cret channels,  from  the  fountain,  full  and  exhaustless,  of  this 
single  prayer.  It  has  hampered  the  wickedness  which  it  did 
not  altogether  curb ;  and  it  has  nourished  individual  goodness 
and  greatness  in  the  eminence  of  which  whole  nations  and  ages 
have  rejoiced. 

What  forming  energy  has  gone  forth  from  the  single  charac- 
ter of  Washington  upon  the  destinies  of  our  own  land  and 
people,  not  only  in  the  days  of  our  Revolution,  but  through 
each  succeeding  year.  He  only  who  reads  that  heart  which  He 
himself  has  fashioned  can  fully  and  exactly  define  the  various 
influences  which  served  to  mould  the  character  of  vhat  eminent 


Xll  PREFACE. 

patriot;  yet  every  biographer  has  attributed  much  of  whai 
George  Washington  became,  to  the  parental  training  and  the 
personal  traits  of  his  mother.  To  Paulding,  in  his  Life  of 
Washington,  we  owe  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  this  Chris- 
tian matron  daily  read  to  her  household,  in  the  youth  of  het 
son,  the  Contemplations  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  the  illustrious  and 
Christian  Judge.  The  volume  is  yet  cherished  in  the  family,  as 
an  heir-loom,  and  bears  the  marks  of  much  use  :  and  one  of  its 
Essays,  "the  Good  Steward,"  is  regarded  by  the  biographer, 
as  having  especially  left  its  deep  and  indelible  traces,  on  the 
principles  and  character  of  the  youth  whom  God  was  rearing 
for  such  high  destinies.  And  certainly,  either  by  the  direct 
influence  of  the  book  and  its  lessons  on  the  sou,  or  by  theii 
indirect  effect  upon  him  through  that  parent  revering  and  dailji 
consulting  the  book,  the  Christian  jurist  and  statesman  of  Bri- 
tain, seems,  in  many  of  his  characteristic  traits,  to  have  re- 
appeared in  this  the  warrior  and  patriot  to  whom  our  own  countr} 
gives  such  earnest  and  profound  gratitude.  The  sobriety,  tht 
balanced  judgment,  the  calm  dignity,  the  watchful  integrit} 
shunning  the  appearance  of  evil,  the  tempered  moderation,  the 
controlling  good  sense,  carried  to  a  rare  degree  that  made  il 
mightier  than  what  is  commonly  termed  genius, — all  were  kin- 
dred traits,  strongly  developed  in  the  character  alike  of  the 
English  and  of  the  American  worthy.  In  Washington's  char- 
acter, this  seems  among  its  strangest  and  rarest  ornaments,  ite 
judicial  serenity  maintained  amidst  the  fierce  conflicts  of  a  Rev- 
olution— the  composure  of  the  Areopagus  carried  into  the 
[struggles  of  Thermopylae.*  Now  the  work  of  Hale,  thus  the 
household   manual  in   the  dwelling  of  the  youthful  Washing- 

•  "Calm,  but  stern;  like  one  whom  no  compassion  could  weaken, 
Neither  could  doubt  deter,  nor  violent  impulses  alter : 
Lord  of  his  o-wn  resolves, — of  his  own  heait  absolute  master." 

SaiJTHEY  (of  Washington)  in  his  Vision  of  Judgment 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

ton,  contains  a  long,  labored  and  minute  series  of  Medita- 
tions on  the  Lord's  Prayer.  How  much  of  the  stein  virtue 
that  shone  serenely  over  the  troubled  strifes  of  the  Common- 
wealth and  Protectorate,  and  over  the  shameless  profligacy  and 
general  debasement  of  the  restored  Stuarts,  came  from  the 
earnest  study  of  that  Prayer,  only  the  Last  Day  can  adequately 
show.  We  can  see,  from  the  space  it  occupies  in  Hale's  volume, 
what  share  the  supplication  had  in  his  habitual  and  most  sacred 
recollections.  We  seem  to  recognize, — in  his  earnest  importu- 
nate deprecation  of  the  sins  from  which  society  held  him  singu- 
larly free,  and  in  his  urgent  and  minute  supplications  for  all  grace 
and  for  those  especial  excellencies,  in  which  his  age  and  land 
pronounced  him  to  have  most  eminently  attained, — the  secret 
of  his  immunity  and  his  virtue.  Is  it  fenciful  or  credulous  to 
infer,  that,  directly  or  indirectly, — in  his  own  acquaintance  person- 
ally with  the  work,  or  in  his  inherited  admiration  of  the  author's 
character, — our  Washington  derived  his  kindred  excellencies 
from  Hale  ;  and  that  healing  virtue  thus  streamed  from  the  robes 
of  the  Saviour  on  the  Mount,  as  He  enunciated  this  form  of  sup- 
plication— streamed  across  wide  oceans,  and  intervening  centuries, 
into  the  heart  and  character  and  influence  of  him  whom  our 
people  delight  to  hail  as  the  Father  of  his  country  ? 

No  human  analysis  can  disintegrate  from  the  virtue  and  free- 
dom and  prosperity  of  modern  Christendom,  the  proportion  and 
amount  of  it,  which  is  distinctly  owing  to  the  influence  of  this 
single  supplication. 

With  these  views  of  the  past  and  coming  influence  of  this 
Divine  composition,  each  Christian  teacher  may  be  allowed, 
again  and  again,  to  recall  the  attention  of  his  flock  to  such  a 
fountain,  whose  streams  have  this  power  from  God  of  perpetual 
vitality,  and  roll  forth  through  each  tract  of  time,  their  all-heal- 
ing and  ever-freshening  waters, — one  source  of  that  river  which 
"  maketh  glad  the  city  of  God."  W.  R.  W 


CONTENTS. 

Pago 
PKEFACE,        .  •       vii 


LECTURE    I. 

"our   FATUEB    which    art   in    HEAVEN",  ...         1 

LECTURE    IL 
"hallowed  be  thy  name, 25 

LECTURE    IIL 
"tht  kingdom  come, 51 

LECTURE    IV. 
"thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven,    ,     Y7 

LECTURE    V. 

OrVE   VB   THIS   DAT   OUR  DAILY   BREAD,  •  •  .   10? 


:V1  CONTENTS, 

LECTURE    VL 

Page 
iND     FOUGIVE     US      OUR    DEBTS     AS     WE     FORGIVE     OUK 

DEBTORS.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .131 


LECTUUE    VII. 

"and    LEAD    UP    NOT    INTO    TEMPTATION,  .  •  .  .    157 

LECTUUE   Vlli. 

"but   DELIVER    US    FROM    EVIL, 183 

LECTURE    IX 

•*  FOR    THINE     IS     THE     KINGDOM,    AND     THE     POWER,    AND 

THE    GLORY,    FOREVER.      AMEN."         .  .  .  .205 

APPENDIX,     .••!•••••    227 


tnljirli  nrt  k  Immu. 

jiallninjli  h  tin;  uamh 

€ilt[  kingkin  rnrnt 

^-llt|  mill  k  kuB  DE  rnrtlr  us  it  w  in  iBauBU. 

(i^inB  M  tjiis  ki{  niir  kilii  kul. 

Inii  fnrgJDB  tis  ntir  hlits, 

0  m  fnrgiDB  Diir  klitois. 

M  kaii  M  lint  intn  trni]itiitinU; 

ht  Mhn  n  frnm  nil : 

for  tjiiDB  13  tjiB  kingkm,  an^  tjjB  pmn, 

flnli  t^B  glnq,  fnr  mn, 

Mm. 


"dDttr  /fltljrr  mljirli  nrt  in  'MimnJ^ 


LECTURE  I. 

"(f)ur  Mlp  mljicj)  irt  in  Husn." 

Matthew,  n.  B. 

With  what  eagerness  of  devout  curiosity,  should 
we  have  listened  to  the  instructions  of  a  Jacob  or  a 
David,  as  to  the  appropriate  form  and  spirit  of  prayer. 
Had  they  come  to  tell  us  the  exact  shape  of  those, 
their  most  memorable  supplications,  which  they  had 
offered  in  some  hour  of  impending  peril,  that  God's 
responding  grace  had  made  the  eve  of  a  great  and  re- 
splendent deliverance  ; — the  lesson  would  be  doubly 
welcome,  from  the  experience  of  its  availability. 
Imagine  that  we  could  learn  from  the  patriarch,  yet 
halting  from  his  night-long  conference  with  G-od,  the 
sentences  that  burst  from  his  fainting  soul  in  the 
dread  struggles  at  Peniel,  when  man  wrestled  with 
his  Maker; — or  did  the  Shepherd  Psalmist  recount  to 
us  the  petitions  he  had  offered  as  he  went,  with  sling  in 
hand,  a  slender  stripling,  to  the  encounter  of  Groliath; 
— or  had  we  from  Elijah  the  words  that  last  quitted 
his  lips,  in  the  shape  of  intercession  for  Elisha  hia 
disciple,  or  for  Israel  his  nation,  ere  his  foot  stepped 


Z  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

from  our  earth  into  the  chariot  of  fire ; — or,  could 
Daniel  return  to  write  down  for  us  the  exact  prayer, 
which,  on  the  memorable  night  passed  by  him  in  the 
den,  had  sealed  the  mouths  of  the  lions  around  him ; 
— we  should  expect  much  advantage  from  instructors 
thus  experienced,  and  much  aid  from  pleadings  thus 
proved  to  be  effectual  in  some  terrible  emergency. 
They  would  bear,  as  it  were,  in  the  seal  of  success, 
the  attestation  of  Heaven  to  their  genuineness  and 
worth  as  prayer. 

But  none  of  all  these  holy  men  would  knoiv  as 
much  of  prayer,  or  have  ivo)i  as  much  in  prayer  as  the 
wonder-working  Teacher,  who  here  tells  his  disciples 
how  to  pray.  Had  Elijah  opened  the  windows  of 
Heaven,  though  for  years  closed,  again  to  send  down 
the  descending  rain?  This  greater  prophet  opened 
the  gates  of  Heaven,  else  through  eternity  barred  and 
impenetrable,  for  the  ingress  of  ascending  sinners. 
Had  Daniel's  cry  muzzled  the  lions  ?  The  dying  cry 
of  this  mightier  Saint, — this  Lord  of  Saints, — quelled 
the  ravening  lions  of  Hell,  and  ransomed  Earth  from 
the  dominion  of  him  who  as  a  roaring  lion  goeth  about 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour.  Is  it  not  more  than  a 
trivial  gain,  to  have  as  our  teacher  in  prayer,  the  Ad- 
vocate who  ever  liveth,  and  who  in  his  intercessions 
never  yet  has  failed  ?  The  best  of  mere  men  have 
often  offered  mistaken  and  fruitless  prayers ;  but 
Jesus  never  asked  wrongly  or  asked  vainly.  Thoy 
wrestled  in  prayer,  it  may  be,  under  the  intolerable 
weight  of  Need,  and  Sin  and  Despair ;  but  which  of 
rtieir  spiritual  agonies  of  importunity,  can  be  put  in 


LECTURE     t 


comparison  AAith  the  prayers  which, — intermingled 
with  groans,  and  tears,  and  with  outbursting  blood, 
and  going  up  it  were  blent  with  the  last  wail  of  the 
outcrushed  soul, — consecrated  the  garden  of  Greth- 
semane  and  the  cross  of  Calvary?  Who  understands 
the  fitting  themes  and  the  appropriate  tempers  of 
prayer  like  that  Mediator,  through  whose  priestly 
censer  all  human  prayer  of  true  potency  has  streamed 
and  will  stream,  from  the  days  of  antediluvian  Enoch 
to  those  of  the  last  millennial  convert  ? 

Did  our  Lord  intend  to  teach  us  by  this  the  use  of 
a  set  and  invariable  form  of  words  in  our  devotions  ? 
Was  it  the  fost  instalment  of  a  liturgy  ?  Against 
that  supposition  are  several  facts.  In  Luke's  gospel, 
our  Saviour  seems,  on  another  occasion,  to  have  re- 
peated the  substance  of  this  form  with  some  impor- 
tant changes  and  omissions.  Does  not  this  imply 
that  the  original  purpose  of  the  prayer  was,  that  it 
should  serve  as  a  model  rather  than  as  a  mould  ?  la 
it  not  something,  by  the  spirit  and  order  and  propor- 
tions of  whose  several  parts,  we  should  guide  our  own 
spontaneous  petitions,  rather  than  a  rigid  and  iron 
enclosure,  within  whose  verbal  and  literal  bounds  all 
our  pious  acknowledgments  and  supplications  should 
be  confined  ?  Again,  in  our  Saviour's  subsequent 
history,  and  in  that  of  his  apostles,  as  the  New  Tes- 
tament preserves  it,  we  find  no  traces  of  such  settled 
and  invariable  formularies  of  supplication.  At  his 
Last  Passover  in  the  upper  chamber  ;  and  in  tne  gar- 
den, and  on  the  cross  ;  he  evidently  bound  not  him- 
self to  the  employment  of  this  or  any  other  one  form 


4  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

of  supplication.  As  to  the  early  Christians,  we  find 
one  of  the  first  of  the  Latin  Fathers  stating  expli- 
citly, that  the  leader  in  the  Christian  assemblies  was 
accustomed  to  pray  according  to  his  capacity.  Each 
evangelist  and  pastor  of  those  days,  according  to  the 
measure  of  his  personal  endowments  and  graces, 
poured  out  before  Gfdd  the  expression  of  their  common 
wants  for  himself  and  the  flock  he  led.  And  useful 
as  it  is,  for  certain  purposes  of  private  edification,  to 
study  the  recorded  prayers  of  such  men  as  Bishops 
Andrewes  and  Ken,  of  the  Puritan  Baxter,  or  of  the 
Nonconformists  Matthew  Henry,  and  Philip  Doddridge, 
the  regular  use  of  another's  form  of  words  to  express 
our  personal  needs,  seems  always  to  tend  towards  for- 
malism. The  form  lacks  pliancy,  and  freshness,  and 
adaptation.  The  practice  seems  again,  in  the  multi- 
plication and  imposition  of  such  forms,  to  tend  to  that 
very  evil  of  which  Christ  here  warns  us — the  "  vain 
repetitions"  into  which  superstition,  both  within  and 
without  the  pale  of  the  Christian  Church,  seems  so 
naturally  to  run.  Had  Christ,  again,  purposed  to 
make  this  the  liturgical  law  of  all  praying  assemblies, 
would  he  not,  in  prospect  of  its  use  by  the  Christian 
Church,  have  added  to  it  the  plea  that  it  should  ba 
heard  in  his  the  Mediator's  Name?  At  a  later  day 
he  taught  his  disciples  that  thereafter  all  their  re- 
quests must  be  based  on  the  one  pleading  of  His 
merits,  and  on  the  single  intercession  of  Himself  as 
the  effectual  Advocate:  "Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask 
the  Father  in  my  name  he  will  give  it  you."*     Now, 

*  John  xvL  23. 


LECTUREI.  O 

the  Lord's  Prayer  lacking  sucli  clause  of  commenda- 
tion to  the  Father,  by  appeal  fetched  from  the  nanio 
and  work  of  the  Son,  can  scarce  have  been  intended 
as  the  authoritative  and  enduring  mould  of  prayer  to 
the  Church  of  Christ  in  all  times.  But,  again,  if 
Christ  intended  to  make  the  prayers  of  his  Church  in 
all  times  a  ritual  and  settled  form,  by  M^hat  right  have 
we  any  other  forms  of  supplication  than  those  of  in,' 
spired  teachers  ?  "We  receive  religious  ordinances 
from  Christ's  Scriptures  and  apostles  only ;  why  take 
our  liturgy,  if  this  too  were  the  proper  and  apostolic 
law  of  the  Church,  from  authority  later  and  lower 
than  that  of  apostolic  times  and  apostolic  men  ?  Say 
you,  it  is  good  to  pray  with  the  Chrysostoms  or 
Ambroses,  the  G-regorys  and  Bernards,  the  Fathers 
and  confessors  of  primitive  or  medisBval  Christianity  ? 
But  is  it  not  yet  better  to  pray  with  the  Spirit  that 
animated  them,  and  not  them  only,  but  who  aided 
the  confessors  and  saints  worshipping  in  the  Jewish 
temple,  or  offering  unto  Gfod  sacrifices  and  supplica- 
tions under  the  still  earlier  and  patriarchal  dispen- 
sation ? 

Christ,  as  we  suppose,  gave  it  rather  as  a  specimen 
of  prayer,  such  as  He  would  have  us  habitually  pre- 
sent, than  as  an  imperishable  mould  into  which  all 
pious  feeling  and  utterance  must  be  compressed.  It 
shows  singular  richness  and  comprehensive  brevity. 
It  puts  into  a  striking  light  the  relative  worth  of 
heavenly  and  earthly  good,  making  our  request  even 
for  the  daily  bread  but  one  out  of  many  petitions  ;— 
not  the  first,   as  if  the   most   momentous, — not  the 


6  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

last,  as  U  the  most  urgent  and  longest  remembered, 
but  enclosed  and   enwrapped,  as  it  were,  in  petitions 
that  referred  to  spiritual  things,   to  the    growth  of 
God's  kingdom,  and  the  overthrow  of  Satan's  tyranny. 
The  order,   again,   in  which  its  desires  are   ranged, 
teaches  us  that  man's  needs  are  never  to  take  pre- 
cedency of  God's  rights.     Its  earlier  petitions  are  still 
of  the  Maker  and  the  Sovereign  and  the  God ; — TiiY 
name — Thy  kingdom — and    Thy  will.     Then,   when 
these  have  been  dwelt  upon,  come  as  in  their  train, 
man's  wants  and  askings  ; — our  bread,  our  trespasses, 
and  OUR  temptations,  and  our  deliverance.     The  Fall 
was  an  inversion  of  Heaven's  order.     It  put  the  crea- 
ture first,  and  the   Creator  last.     In  this,  as  in  the 
other   teachings  of  Christ,  the   order   of   Truth   and 
Nature,  and  God  is  restored ;  man's  insane  decree  for 
the  dethronement  of  Jehovah  is  set  aside,   and  the 
Greater  takes  rank  of  the  lesser,   and  man's  needs 
come  in  as  the  corollary  of  the  restitution  of  God's 
rights.     The  heirs  walk  in  the  Father's  train,   and 
share  in  the  conquests  of  the  Avenger  and  Ransomer. 
At  this  time  we  ask  you  to  consider  but  the  open- 
ing invocation.     It  lifts  upwards  the  child's  brow,  and 
claims  in  Heaven  and  in  the  King  of  that  country  a 
filial  interest.     "We  may,  to  gather  more  clearly  its 
blessed   lessons,    dwell   upon   the   Parentage,   "  Our 
Father;"  Vae  brotherhood,  "Our  Father;"  and  the 
Home,  "  Our  Father  which  art  in   Heaven  :"  or,  in 
other  words,  the  text  may  be  regarded  as  grouping 
together  the  three  principles  which  settle  man's  just 
relations  to  this  and  to  the  next  world  : 


LECTURE     I.  7 

I.  The  Filial  ;  he  sees  in  the  Most  High  a  Father  : 

II.  The  FRATERNAL )  he  comes  not  with  his  private 
needs  and  vows  alone,  but  with  those  of  his  race  and 
brotherhood,  "  Our  Father  :"     And 

III.  The  CELESTIAL  f  Though  we  are  now  of  the 
earth,  and  attached  to  it  by  those  mortal  and  terrene 
bodies,  we  are  not  originally  from  it,  nor  were  wo 
made  to  be  eternally  upon  it.  We  are  of  Heaven, 
and  for  Heaven  ;  for  there  and  not  here  our  Father 
is,  and  where  He  is  our  true  Home  is. 

I.  In  a  certain  sense,  then,  all  men,  the  heathen 
and  the  sinner,  no  less  than  the  regenerate  disciple  of 
the  Saviour,  may  call  God  their  Heavenly  Parent. 
He  is  such,  as  their  Creator.  To  him  they  owe  the 
powers  of  body  and  mind  which  they  possess ;  and 
His  fiat  fixed  the  age  in  the  world's  history,  as  well 
as  the  country  and  the  household  in  which  they  should 
be  born.  And  again,  in  His  daily  and  incessant  care 
for  them,  as  revealing  itself  in  the  revolving  seasons, 
in  the  falling  showers,  and  the  springing  harvests, — 
in  the  times  of  prosperity  or  calamity,  enfranchise- 
ment or  captivity,  that  pass  over  the  nations, — His 
fatherly  care  and  Providence  are  keeping  ward  oval 
thom,  as  does  no  mother  over  her  cradled  child, — as 
does  no  doting  father  over  the  Joseph  or  the  Absalom 
who  is  the  light  of  that  father's  eyes.  He  is  thus 
"  The  Father  of  our  spirits."  The  family  and  the 
tribe,  must  at  last  trace  back  their  pedigree  to  the 
garden  of  Eden  :  and  human  life  began  in  the  plastic 
hand,  that  also  moulded  and  shot  along  their  heavenly 
orbits  the  starry  worlds.     Paul  therefore  quoted  to  tho 


8  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

heathens  of  Athens  the  saying  of  one  of  their  own 
Grentile  poets  :  "  We  are  his  ofl'spring."  More  really, 
than  it  can  be  said  of  our  earthly  progenitors,  God  is 
our  Father. 

But  we  have  not  retained,  undiluted  and  uncon^ 
taminated,  the  original  and  divine  stock.  We  are  by 
our  o^\-n  fatal  choice  prodigrls  and  exiles  from  the 
Father's  home.  Whilst  even  Paganism  kept  partial 
and  fragmentary  traces  of  the  great  truth  that  God  is 
our  Father,  human  depravity  and  Satanic  delusion 
have  done  all  in  their  power  to  effa''e  the  genealogy, 
and  to  renounce  the  heritage  and  to  transfer  to  an- 
other, and  that  other  an  usurper,  the  filial  allegiance. 
The  Jews  were  told  by  Christ  that  they  were  of  their 
father  the  Devil.  The  whole  system  of  Revelation 
and  Religion  is  an  orderly  scheme,  manifesting  itself 
in  several  stages  or  dispensations,  for  the  bringing 
back  of  the  wanderers  and  outcasts.  And  as  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  life  of  each  of  us,  the  child  may 
look  upon  the  father  and  his  stern  authority  with 
something  of  distrust,  and  whilst  remaining  yet  but 
a  child — incapable  of  large  views,  and  of  being 
affected  by  long  delayed  promises  or  long  deferred 
punishments, — needs  prompt  and  tangible  rewards 
and  chastisements ;  so,  in  the  Jewish  dispensation,— 
the  childhood  of  the  Church  of  God, — the  blessings 
of  obedience  and  the  retributions  of  disobedience  were 
more  temporal  and  immediate  in  their  character  than 
now.  And  then,  too,  the  Church  looked  on  God,  as  it 
were,  rather  in  the  stern  character  of  the  Legislator 
and  the    Lord,  than  in  the  winning  relation  of  the 


LECTURE     I. 


f 


Parent.  But  as  with  the  growth  of  years,  a  well- 
trained  child  is  likely  to  extend  to  the  father,  as  his 
own  youthful  faculties  expand  and  he  learns  to  under- 
stand the  wisdom  and  necessity  of  the  paternal  re- 
straint— as  he  is,  we  say,  likely,  then,  to  extend  to 
the  father  something  of  the  confiding  affection  which 
he  had  heretofore  kept  only  for  the  mother ;  so,  in  the 
maturity  of  the  Church,  and  in  the  later  dispensation 
of  God's  own  Son,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  He,  the 
God,  who  before  had  generally  been  seen  but  as  the 
Lord,  was  now  apprehended  and  approached  as  the 
Father.  Dominion  rises  and  softens  into  Fatherhood. 
But  do  all,  having  the  Christian  Scriptures,  thus 
find  themselves  won  by  a  filial  love  and  trust  towards 
God  ?  Alas,  far  from  it.  It  is  only  the  renewed  soul, 
that  can  intelligently  appropriate  these  privileges  and 
come  to  the  mercy-seat  as  to  a  Father's  feet.  We  re- 
ceive by  the  grace  of  God  in  conversion,  the  spirit  of 
adoption,  "  whereby  we  call  God,  abba,  father." 
Whilst  creation,  then,  attached  us  to  God ;  the  Fall 
detached  us  from  Him  ;  and  it  is  only  the  Regenera- 
tion that  re-attaches  us.  Whilst  .aj^  are  invited  to 
come  to  God,  even  as  children  come  to  a  loving  parent, 
it  is  but  too  certain  that  none  will  heed  the  summons 
and  embrace  the  privilege,  except  as  the  Spirit  prompts 
and  enables  them.  How  impressive  are  the  descrip- 
tions of  some  who  have  experienced  that  change — for 
instance,  the  poet  Cowper,  in  his  correspondence — of 
the  new  and  strange  gladness, — the  spirit  of  filial  trust 
wrought  within  them,  when  they  obtained  the  confi- 
dence and  the  affection  of  children,  in  exchange  fojf 
1* 


10  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  overmastering  dread  which  they  had  once  felt, 
dragging  thera  as  in  bondage,  and  that  a  bondage  as 
intolerable  as  it  was  indissoluble. 

But  if  Grod  be  a  Father,  where  is  his  fear  ?  Ho  re- 
quires it  of  those  who  are  thus  His  children,  that  as 
such  they  not  only  confide  in  and  claim  Him;  but  that 
they  revere  Him,  fearing  to  dishonor  and  offend  Him, 
and  showing  themselves  careful  of  His  name  and  will, 
with  an  ingenuous  and  filial  awe;  and  that  they  dis- 
play, also,  submission  when  He  afflicts  them,  or  when 
He  walks  in  mystery,  and  curtains  His  purposes  and 
plans  in  thick  darkness.  All  these  traits  of  the  filial 
relation, — how  beautifully  and  perfectly  were  they  ex- 
hibited in  the  demeanor  of  that  Elder  Brother  who 
taught  us  this  prayer.  Need  we  examples  of  filial 
confidence  ? — See  Him  as  he  cries  :  "  I  know.  Father, 
that  thou  hearest  me  ahvays ;"  and  on  the  cross,  "Into 
thy  hands.  Father,  I  commend  my  spirit."  Is  it  filial 
reverence? — Hear  him  at  one  time  exclaim,  "Even 
so.  Father,  for  so  has  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight;" 
and  at  another  time :  "It  is  my  meat  and  drink  to 
do  my  Father's  will ;"  and  still  earlier  :  "  AYist  ye  not 
that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's  business  ?"  Is  it 
filial  submission? — Stand  by  Him  as  he  lifts  to  His 
shrinking  lips  the  cup  of  atoning  sorrow  in  Gethsem- 
ane,  and  exclaims  amid  outgushing  blood  and  bitter 
sighs,  "  Not  my  will,  Father,  but  thine  be  done." 
Christ's  whole  career  furnished  one  lucid  and  cloud- 
less commentary  on  this  opening  invocation ;  and  He 
was  indeed  a  Son  in  whom  the  Father  was  ever 
pleased ;  and  yet,  though  a  Son,  even  He  learned  obe- 


LECTURE     I.  11 

dience  by  the  things  which  he  suffered.  Is  ours  a 
world  of  sorrows  ?  Has  Job's  affliction  its  modern 
coincidences,  and  Lazarus'  poverty ; — and  have  the 
bereavements  of  Moses,  and  Aaron,  and  Eli,  and  Da- 
vid, and  Naomi,  yet  their  parallels  ?  Still,  it  is  a 
Father's  hand  that  bereaves  and  depresses  us ;  and 
prayer  beside  each  freshly  opened  grave,  and  under 
each  irreparable  blow,  is  not  only  our  plainest  duty, 
but  our  richest  privilege.  And,  in  seasons  of  gladness, 
what  new  elements  of  sacred  sweetness  and  celestial 
energy  are  added  to  our  personal  and  social  mercies, 
as  we  see  in  them  the  inscriptions,  neither  few  nor 
illegible,  of  a  Father's  interest,  even  in  our  present 
and  terrestrial  career,  and  of  His  indulgent  love,  even 
for  his  yet  imperfect  and  erring  children. 

n.  But,  to  find  my  God,  must  I  not  desert  my  kin- 
dred ;  and  breaking  loose  from  the  race  in  their  banded 
revolt,  must  I  not  flee  to  the  wilderness,  and  there 
rear  for  me,  and  tenant  through  life  the  hermitage  ? 
Religion  is  indeed  a  personal  thing,  but  it  is  not  there- 
fore a  principle  of  social  isolation.  We  must  visit  the 
closet ;  but  into  the  closet  we  must  carry  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  race,  and  bare  before  our  G-od  a  heart  that 
can  take  in  the  world,  in  its  wide  reach  of  interces- 
sion and  fraternal  regard.  When  ihe  younger  son,  in 
the  parable  of  the  Prodigal,  would  turn  his  back  on 
the  father,  he  wished  also  to  divide  himself  and  his 
interests  from  the  brother.  "  Grive  me,"  said  he,  "the 
portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  me."  But  when  I 
come  back  to  my  forsaken  and  forgiving  Father  in 
Heaven,  and  ask  him  of  His  rich  grace  the  goods  to  be 


12  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

given  in  tlie  Brother's  name  to  me,  I  must  ask,  not  tor 
myself  only,  but  for  all  my  brothers  as  well.  The  re- 
newal of  the  Parental,  re-knits  the  fraternal  tie.  And 
hence  the  petitions  of  this  prayer  are  throughout  plural 
and  collective.  Though  we  go  alo7ie  into  the  closet, 
we  are  not  accepted  there,  if  we  go  in  selfishness  and 
isolalion,  and  if  we  come  out  thence  egotists  in  our 
piety,  and  monopolists  in  our  prayers.  The  patents  of 
heavenly  fihation  are  letters  of  world-wide  fraternity. 
Hence  the  very  birth-cry  of  Faith,  in  the  first  utter- 
ance of  a  newly  witnessed  adoption,  claims  Grod  not 
only  for  itself,  but  for  the  entire  household  of  faith. 

It  was  so  in  the  Psalmist's  times.  He  said  indeed, 
"  0  God,  thou  art  my  God."  But  he  said  also,  "I 
was  glad  when  they  said  unto  me,  come  let  us  go  into 
the  house  of  God;"  and  Paul  declares  of  early  Chris- 
tians, that  giving  themselves  to  the  Lord  they  gave 
themselves  to  the  Church  by  the  will  of  God ;  and 
John  puts  down  among  the  tests  of  true  love  to  the 
Father,  love  to  all  who  are  begotten  of  Him.  Is  it, 
in  these  days  of  growing  disregard  for  mere  distinc- 
tions of  class  and  rank,  regarded  as  a  noble  utterance 
of  the  poet,  when,  scouting  culture,  and  wealth,  and 
title,  he  exclaims  "  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that" — 
surely  it  is  a  principle  older  than  his  times — old  as  the 
cross  and  the  day  of  Pentecost.  Let  a  man,  no 
matter  what  his  sectarian  distinctions,  and  natural  or 
social  disadvantages, — or  what  his  discrepancies  in  the 
minor  views  and  practices  of  religion, — give  but  evi- 
dence of  love  to  Christ  and  to  his  word,  and  holiness, 
and  he  is  my  brother.     Be  he  Arminian   or  Calvinist, 


LECTURE     I,  13 

Episcopalian  or  Congregationalist, — let  him  be  Bap- 
tist or  Pedobaptist, — let  him  have  all  worldly  disad- 
vantages of  education,  and  station,  and  taste  ; — be  he 
Greek  or  Barbarian,  bond  or  free, — if  I  love  Christ,  I 
love  that  disciple  of  Christ.  "  A  sainVs  a  saint  for 
a'  that."  Under  every  variety  of  co.stume,  and  dis- 
pensation, and  dialect,  and  race,  the  tenant  of  a  Caffre 
kraal,  or  of  the  Greenlander's  snow^-hut, — nay,  let  him 
mutter  this  prayer  as  his  Pater  Noster  in  an  unknown 
tongue  ;  if  I  find  under  all  his  superstition  and  dis- 
guises of  hereditary  prejudice  and  error,  the  love  of 
my  Christ,  and  the  likeness  of  my  Lord,  can  I, — dare 
I  disavow  the  brotherhood  ?  But,  beyond  those  who 
are  already  Christians  ;  we  suppose  the  principle  of 
fraternity,  here  recognized,  to  include  those  yet  igno- 
rant of  the  Saviour,  who  may  become  hereafter  Chris- 
tians. And  as  we  know  not  but  that  the  worst  and 
basest  may  be  one  day  translated  into  this  last  class , 
see  how  broad  a  horizon  the  very  outburst  of  the  prayer 
opens.  It  bids  us  intercede  for  all  men.  Stephen's 
prayers  took  in  Paul,  whilst  as  yet  that  youth  was  the 
enemy  of  the  martyr,  and  of  the  martyr's  Loi'd,  com- 
pelling men  to  blaspheme  his  Redeeming  Name,  And 
so  should  we  pray,  in  the  temper  of  our  Saviour,  when 
he  flung  from  the  cross  the  bands  of  His  intercessory 
sympathy  around  the  crowds,  whose  ears  drank  in 
with  greedy  hate  the  last  gaspings  of  their  murdered 
victim. 

Taken  in  this  view,  how  far  is  the  gospel  yet  in 
n^eek  advance  of  the  reforms  and  revolutions  of  our 
t.  oo      We  throw  no  word  of  scorn  in  the  pj»''h  of 


14  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

those  seeking  honestly  and  wisely  to  uplift  the  dcwn- 
trodden,  and  to  right  the  oppressed.  But  in  the  deru 
ocratic  outbreaks  of  our  times,  how  much  is  there  of 
the  hereditary  hate  of  races.  The  Celt  swears  ven- 
geance against  the  Saxon ;  the  Sclavonic  cannot  fra- 
ternize with  the  German  stock.  The  dim  -epositories 
of  the  past  arc  ransacked  for  missiles  and  watchwords, 
that  may  serve  as  firebrands  to  rekindle  the  old  hered- 
itary feuds  of  alien  and  rival  lineages.  The  Italian 
thinks  himself  scarce  a  creature  of  the  same  blood 
and  of  the  same  God  with  the  Austrian.  Now  the 
gospel  goes  forth  as  the  great,  the  peaceful,  but  unap- 
peasable revolutionist ;  but  its  watchword  is  a  frater- 
nity broad  as  Humanity.  And  when  men  learn  to 
feel  these  ties  and  claims  of  brotherhood,  the  needy 
and  the  lowly  are  soothed  and  elevated  ;  the  savage 
puts  on  dignity,  and  the  bondsman  hope ;  and  woman 
glides  from  the  prison  where  barbarism  had  immured 
her.  So,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mighty,  and  the  intel- 
ligent, and  the  rich,  thus  instructed,  forget  their  tran- 
sient and  skin-deep  distinctions  of  caste  and  culture  ; 
and  feel, — in  the  view  of  a  common  sin — and  salva- 
tion— and  judgment-seat, — the  sense  of  stewardship 
casting  out  the  odious  spirit  of  self-gratification.  Lit- 
eral equality,  no  change  in  man's  power  can  bring 
about.  There  would  remain,  on  the  day  after  an  equal 
distribution  of  all  goods  and  lands  to  all  earth's  inhab- 
itants, the  eternal  and  irremovable  distinctions  of  sex 
and  age,  and  mental  talent  and  bodily  endowment. 
You  might  as  well  propose  to  equalize  the  whole  body 
of  the  man  into  an  eye,  clear  but  defenceless,  or  into  a 


LECTURE    r.  1»5 

cheek,  earless,  and  eyeless,  and  browless,  as  to  make 
tlie  body  politic,  in  all  its  members,  and  all  its  circum- 
stances, one.  But  give  the  feeling  of  true  christian 
fraternity  ;  and,  while  each  member  retains  its  indi- 
viduality and  its  distinct  offices,  and  its  fitting  pecu- 
liarities, the  good  of  one  member  would  become  the 
good  of  all.  The  hand  would  toil  in  the  light  of  the 
guiding  eye  ;  and  the  eye  travel  in  the  strength  of  the 
adventurous  and  patient  foot.  No  external  legisla- 
tion, in  the  power  of  the  Roman  Empire,  could  have 
put  John  the  Baptist  utterly  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
long-cherished  grudge  in  the  heart  of  Herodias  ;  or 
have  quenched  in  Nero's  bosom  his  purpose  of  injury 
to  the  unoffending  Christians  of  his  dominion.  But 
let  the  grace  of  Christ  have  gone  into  the  heart  of  the 
Jewish  princess,  or  the  G-entile  despot ;  and  the  one 
would  not  have  asked  the  massacre  of  her  brother  in 
Christ,  John  the  Baptist ;  and  the  other  would  not 
have  heaped  on  his  brethren,  the  millions  of  his  sub- 
jects, wrong,  and  defilement,  and  confiscation,  and 
death.  The  revolutions  that  stop  short  of  the  heart, 
leave  the  diseases  of  the  body  politic,  and  the  miseries 
of  the  individual,  of  the  household,  and  of  the  nation, 
unremedied.  Brotherhood  in  Christ  is  the  only  true 
democracy  of  the  soul.  And,  unleavened  by  this  gos- 
pel of  the  Nazarene,  Democracy  can  be  as  despotic, 
sanguinary,  and  faithless,  as  was  the  dominion  of  the 
Old  M  an  of  the  Mountain,  the  Prince  of  the  Assassins, 
in  ilie  days  of  the  Crusaders.  See,  in  proof  of  this, 
democracy  as  vaunting  itself  in  the  Canton  de  Vaud, 
persecuting  the  innocent  Christians  with  fellest  hate 


16  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

It  is  not  tlie  war  of  classes,  or  the  war  of  castes  and 
races,  that  must  disenthral  the  earth ;  but.  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  in  the  love  of  the  Re- 
deemer who  taught  that  prayer, — the  nations  must 
become  brethren,  to  become  free,  and  equal,  and  one. 
Now  much  of  the  effort  of  reform  in  our  time  is  going 
in  the  wrong  direction.  It  panders  to  the  demoniacal 
part  of  man's  nature,  instead  of  seeking  from  Grod's 
word  and  Spirit  the  restoration  of  the  divine  principle 
in  our  fallen  humanity.  It  gratifies,  where  it  should 
regenerate. 

But  how  shall  man  get  or  keep  this  sense  of  his 
fraternity  to  man,  and  of  his  filial  relations  to  God  ? 
We  must  remember,  then,  in  our  own  original  and 
indestructible  relations  to  the  Universe,  the  principle 
celestial  which  our  text  brings  out.  Prayer  is  a  pro- 
test against  mere  earthliness.  It  is  asking — beyond 
Earth — what  Earth  cannot  give ;  it  is  an  upward 
journey  in  quest  of  peace  amid  outward  troubles, — of 
peace  in  the  departing  hour, — of  victory  over  self  and 
sin,  and  death.  Whither  does  prayer  go  ?  It  is 
winged  and  ascending.  We  see  in  lower  orders  of 
the  creation,  a  being  the  inhabitant  of  one  element 
undergoing  changes  that  prepare  it  to  ascend  into 
another.  The  worm  puts  on  the  wings  of  the  butter- 
fly. The  insect,  in  its  early  stage,  a  denizen  of  the 
waters,  mounts,  in  its  later  stage,  to  the  air.  So  is 
it  with  ourselves.  We  are  in  transition.  Our  views 
of  man  and  earth  are  defective, — and  ruinously  de- 
fective,— if  they  do  not  regard  the  intimations  to  bo 
found  in   our  own  spirits  and  in  our  earthly  lot,  of 


LECTURE     I.  17 

our  relation  to  another,  an  invisible  and  a  heavenly 
world 

III.  "  Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven.''''  The 
Heaven  where  Grod  is,  is  the  point  of  man's  original 
departure,  and  also  the  term  of  man's  final  destiny. 
Earth  is  but  an  outlying  colony  and  dependency  of 
the  Empire  of  Heaven, — the  serene,  the  all-controlling 
^nd  everlasting  Heaven.  Man  was  not  his  own 
maker,  nor  is  he  properly  his  own  legislator.  True 
views  of  Virtue  and  Duty,  and  Grovernment,  and 
Happiness,  cannot  be  formed  on  earth  if  you  exclude 
Heaven  from  the  field  of  vision.  Now,  it  is  the  cry 
of  some  socialists  and  revolutionists  in  our  times,  that 
man  has  been  cheated  of  earth  by  visions  of  an  im- 
aginary Heaven  beyond  it,  and  that  this  world  may 
be  and  ought  to  be  made  our  Heaven,  and  that  it  will 
suffice  as  our  only  Paradise.  A  proposal  to  make 
their  own  daylight,  and  to  arrange  for  themselves  the 
axis,  and  the  poles,  and  the  orbit  of  the  earth,  by  vote 
of  a  great  ecumenical  legislature,  would  be  as  sobei 
and  as  practicable  a  theory.  You  could  not,  if  you 
would,  cut  loose  your  globe  and  your  race  from  heaven. 
It  is  an  impossibility  by  the  will  of  the  earth's  Framer 
and  Sovereign.  You  should  not,  if  you  could,  thus 
disunite  them.  It  would  be  wretchedness.  Heaven 
is  necessary  to  earth  even  in  the  things  of  this  life, 
to  drop  its  balm  into  the  beggar's  cup,  and  to  shed  its 
light  on  the  child's  lesson.  You  cannot  sail  over  that 
comparatively  narrow  strip  of  your  planet,  the  sea 
that  parts  your  coast  from  the  white  cliffs  of  Albion, 
without  callinof  the  Heaven    and  its  orbs  in  their  far 


18  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

wider  range  of  space  into  view,  in  order  thereby  to 
aid  your  calculations  and  to  supply  your  nautical 
reckonings.  You  cannot  time  your  morrow's  visit  to 
your  office,  but  as  God  shall  keep  his  sun  and  your 
own  earth,  (or  his  earth,  rather,) — as  they  roll  and 
blaze,  millions  of  miles  away  from  each  other, — in 
Ihcir  present  relative  positions  to  each  other.  And 
so,  without  the  moral  inlluence  of  the  Heavens  upon 
the  earth,  you  cannot  be  blest,  or  just  or  free,  or  true. 
Your  philosophies  become, — with  God  forgotten  and 
defied,  with  Eternity  and  accountability  obliterated 
from  their  teachings — but  a  lie ;  and  your  political 
economy  shorn  of  Duty  and  God,  is  left  but  a  lie  ; 
and  your  statesmanship,  and  your  civilization,  and 
your  enfranchisement,  if  torn  loose  from  Conscience 
and  the  Lord  of  conscience,  all  are  left  but  one  vast 
and  ruinous  delusion. 

Man's  Maker  is  in  Heaven.  He  formed  His  crea- 
ture for  His  own  service  and  His  own  glory.  That 
creature  has  revolted ;  and  until  his  return  to  the 
God  in  Heaven  from  whom  he  is  departed,  the  anger 
of  Heaven  is  on  the  race  and  its  institutions ;  and 
even  its  mercies  are  cursed.  The  shadow  of  the 
Throne  must  be  projected  over  the  board  where  man 
daily  feeds, — over  the  cradle  and  the  school,  and  the 
ballot-box, — over  the  shop  and  the  rail-road,  and  the 
swift  ship,  the  anvil  and  the  plough  and  the  loom,-^ 
over  all  that  ministers  to  man's  earthly  comforts  and 
corporeal  needs ; — as  well  as  over  the  pillow  where  he 
lays  down  his  throbbing  head  to  die,  and  over  the 
grave  where  he  has  left  his  child,  his  wife,  or  his 


LECTURE     I.  19 

friend,  to  moulder.  Not  that  we  ask  an  establish- 
ment of  Christianity  as  a  State  Religion.  But  we 
mean,  that,  for  man's  own  interest  his  daily  mercies 
and  tasks  must,  in  Paul's  language,  "  be  sanctified 
by  the  word  of  God  and  prayer ;" — by  a  remem- 
brance of  the  Deity  whose  subject  he  irrevocably  is, 
and  a  continual  preparation  for  the  eternity  of  which 
he  is  indefeasibly  the  heir. 

Heaven  was,  we  said,  not  only  man's  point  of  t/e- 
parture,  but  it  is  also  the  term  of  his  final  destiny. 
We  do  not  mean  that  all  men  will  reach  Heaven  to 
inherit  it.  But  all  must  stand  before  its  bar  to  be 
judged.  They  cannot  strip  from  themselves  mor- 
tality or  immortality,  and  the  moral  accountability 
which,  after  death,  awaits  the  deathless  and  disem- 
bodied spirit.  This  world  is  but  a  scene  of  probation. 
Christ  has  descended  to  show  how  this  world  may  be- 
come the  preparation  for  a  celestial  home.  Bring 
Heaven,  as  Christ's  blood  opens  it  and  Christ's  word 
paints  it,  before  the  wretched  and  wicked  denizens  of 
earth :  and  what  power  does  that  eternal  world,  seen 
by  the  eye  of  Faith,  possess  to  attract  and  to  elevate, 
— to  extricate  from  the  quagmires  of  temptation, — to 
assimilate  and  ennoble  the  degraded  into  its  own  glo- 
rious  likeness  ; — and  to  c6mpe;isate  the  suffering  and 
the  needy,  and  the  neglected  of  earth,  for  all  which 
they  have  lost  and  for  all  they  have  endured. 

And  until  men  consent  to  make  Heaven,  as  it  were, 
the  background  of  all  their  earthly  vista,  their  views— 
in  history,  and  in  art,  and  in  science,  and  in  law,  and 
in  freedom — must  all  be  partial  and  fallacious.    Eliz- 


20  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

abeth  of  England,  in  ignorance  of  the  iaws  of  paint- 
ing, wished  her  own  portrait  to  be  taken  by  the  painter 
without  shadows.  She  knew  not  that  in  the  painter's 
art  there  could  not  be  light  and  prominence  to  any 
figure  or  feature,  unless  as  it  had  some  measure  of 
shade  behind  it.  Alas,  how  many  would  have  man 
portrayed,  in  their  schemes  of  polity  and  of  philoso- 
phy, without  the  dark  background  of  Death  and  Eter- 
nity behind  him,  and  without  the  shadings  of  Fear, 
and  dim  Hope,  and  dark  Conscience  within  him.  But 
it  cannot  be. 

Fit  the  man  for  Heaven,  and  train  him  for  eternity ; 
and  he  cannot  be  utterly  unfit  for  Earth  while  he 
stays  there.  Fit  him  for  Earth  only  ;  secularize  his 
education,  and  refuse  to  acknowledge  his  relations  and 
obligations  to  Heaven ;  and  he  is  no  longer  truly  and 
fully  fit  for  earth.  Our  globe,  without  the  sun  or  the 
stars,  or  the  light  of  the  material  Heavens, — what 
were  it  as  a  place  of  man's  habitation  ? — Read  a  noble 
and  infidel  bard's  gloomy  poem  on  Darkness,  and  you 
may  conceive  the  fate  of  a  race  blinded,  and  chilled, 
and  groping  their  way  into  one  frozen  charnel-house. 
And  so  our  earth, — without  the  light  of  Christ  the 
Former  of  it,  and  Christ  on  the  cross  as  the  Redeemer 
of  it,  and  Christ  on  the  throne  as  the  Judge  of  it, — 
the  world  without  Him  as  its  Sun  of  Righteousness, 
is  morally  eclipsed,  and  blasted  with  the  winter  of  the 
Second  Death  ;  and  that  frost  and  gloom  kill  not  only 
its  religion,  but  kill  its  freedom  as  well,  and  its  peace, 
and  its  civilization,  and  its  science. 

Let  the  world  know  that  there  is  a  Father,  and  they 


LECTURE     I.  21 

will  bethink  them  of  His  Providence  ; — let  them  know 
that  He  is  our  common  Father,  and  they  will  learn 
charity  and  philanthropy  for  the  race  ; — let  them  know 
that  He  is  in  Heaven,  and  they  will  be  awed  and 
guided  by  that  Immortality  and  Accountability  which 
link  them  to  that  world  of  light. 

Let  the  churches  ponder  these  great  truths.  In  the 
filial  principle  of  our  text,  they  will  find  Life  and 
Earth  made  glorious,  by  the  thought  that  a  Father 
made  and  rules  them  ;  and,  above  all  worldly  dis- 
tinctions, they  will  prize  and  exult  in  their  bonds 
through  Christ  to  Him ; — rejoicing,  mainly  as  Christ 
commanded  his  apostles  to  rejoice,  in  this  that  their 
names  are  written  in  Heaven.  In  the  fraternal  prin- 
ciple we  shall  aright  learn  to  love  the  Church  and  to 
compassionate  the  world  ;  and  in  the  principle  celes- 
tial., we  shall  be  taught  to  cultivate  that  heavenly- 
mindedness  which  shall  make  the  Christian,  though 
feeble,  suffering,  and  forlorn  in  his  worldly  relations, 
already  lustrous  and  blest,  as  Burke  described  in  her 
worldly  pomp,  and  in  the  bloom  of  her  youth,  the  hap- 
less Queen  of  France:  "A  brilliant  orb,  that  seemed 
scarce  to  touch  the  horizon."  More  justly  might  the 
saint  of  God  be  thus  described  ;  having  already,  as  the 
apostle  enjoins,  his  conversation  in  Heaven,  and  shed- 
ding around  the  earth  the  splendors  of  that  world  with 
which  he  holds  close  and  blest  communion,  and  to- 
wards which  he  seems  habitually  ready  to  mount, 
longing  to  depart  that  he  may  be  with  Christ,  which 
is  far  better. 


''liillDinri  k  \\)\\  Mam'^ 


LECTURE   II. 

Matthew,  vi.  9. 

The  opening  words  of  the  prayer  raise  our  thoughts 
to  Heaven — our  Father's  abode  and  our  proper  Home. 
It  is  the  central  seat  and  the  Metropolis  of  Holiness. 
Its  very  atmosphere  is  one  of  moral  purity.  Its  in- 
habitants, although  various  in  rank  and  endowment, — 
some  of  them  angels  unconscious  of  a  Fall,  and  others 
of  them  children  of  Adam,  ransomed  from  a  fall  most 
profound  and  deplorable, — are  all,  however  otherwise 
distinguished  from  each  other,  now  alike  in  this  one 
trait,  that  they  are  all  and  altogether,  holy.  Sinless 
themselves,  they  offer  sinless  praises  to  the  Sinless 
One,  and  hymn  together  the  name  of  Ineffable  Sanc- 
tity. 

Raised  by  the  opening  words  of  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
as  the  soul  is,  to  the  verge  of  this  land  of  celestial  pu- 
ri1y,  the  words  which  next  follow  that  opening  clause, 
and  which  form  our  text,  are  a  prayer  in  which  the 
soul  inhales  seemingly  from  Paradise  its  atmosphere 
of  holiness,  and  takes  up  for  Earth  the  burden  and  re- 

2 


26  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

sponse  of  Heaven's  eternal  anthem,  "  Hallowed  be  thy 
Name."  To  hallow  is  to  treat  as  holy  ;  or  purely  to  wor- 
ship and  purely  to  serve.  But  fettered  as  in  our  dark 
world  we  are  with  all  unholiness,  does  notour  innate  and 
universal  depravity  make  the  prayer  a  contradiction  ?  Is 
not  the  mere  passage  through  our  unclean  lips  of  that 
name  of  such  tremendous  purity,  a  contamination  of  its 
spotlessness  ?  Can  the  Sinless  brook  even  the  vows,  im- 
perfect and  defiled,  of  the  sinful?  Do  we  not  dese- 
crate and  dishallow,  so  to  speak,  this  the  theme  of 
Heaven,  by  our  attempts  to  stammer  it  ?  Lilf e  the 
white  lily  cropt  by  the  collier's  begrimed  hand, — a 
flower  soiled  in  the  very  gathering  of  it, — does  not  our 
moral  unfitness  profane,  as  we  pronounce  it,  a  Name 
so  august  and  holy?  As 'by  the  contrast  between  our 
work  and  ourselves,  and  in  the  flagrant  opposition  be- 
tween the  theme  and  the  worshipper,  we  are  humbled, 
The  opening  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  like  the  opening  of 
the  Beatitudes,  preaches  penitence  and  humility.  Do 
the  Beatitudes,  before  all  things  else,  require  us  to  be 
poor  in  spirit ;  so  also  does  this  petition  of  our  Lord's 
Prayer.  A  prayer  for  holiness  in  God's  service,  is  vir- 
tually a  protest  against  our  own  prevalent  unholiness, 
by  nature,  and  by  practice  as  well.  With  earnest  sup- 
plication, then,  for  that  preparation  which  in  ourselves 
we  find  not,  let  us  now — 

I.  Examine  the  terms  of  the  prayer  ; 

IL  Consider  the  sins  of  act  and  thought  this  peti- 
tion condemns  in  us  ;   and, 

HL  The  duties  to  which  it  pledges  us. 

I.  To  implore  that  G-od's  name  may  be  hallowed  is 


LECTURE!  I.  27 

to  ask  that  it  may  be  treated  with  due  reverence,  as 
befits  the  holy.  In  Heaven  it  is  so  treated.  "When 
Isaiah  saw  in  God's  own  temple  a  vision  of  the  Heav- 
enly Throne,  and  its  ministering  angels,  these  attend- 
ant spirits  responded  to  each  other  in  sacred  rapture  : 
**  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  the  whole 
earth  is  full  of  His  glory."*  From  all  pure  and  sinless 
worlds  comes  back  a  repetition  of  the  strain.  But 
from  our  earth  the  echo  was  broken  off  by  the  Fall. 
We  have  in  the  apostle's  language,  sinned,  "  and  come 
short  of  His  glory y^  We  start  aside  from  that  great 
end  and  aim  of  our  being — the  Divine  glory — for 
which  we  were  created.  Whatever  else  of  wisdom 
and  strength  the  Fall  left,  yet  in  some  degree  remain- 
ing in  and  adhering  to  our  nature,  holiness  was  the 
element  of  human  character  that  was  most  fatally  and 
entirely  destroyed.  Ourselves,  thus  become  both  un- 
willing and  unfit  to  praise  Him,  we  sought  to  ad- 
vance Man's  name  to  the  priority  and  authority  from 
which  we  would  fain  thrust  aside  God's.  The  Fall 
was  an  attempt  to  dethrone  the  Creator  and  Sovereign, 
by  the  enthronization  and  the  apotheosis  of  self. 

But  true  holiness  we  had  lost  irremediably  in  the 
attempt  thus  to  wrong  our  Father,  and  to  deify  our- 
selves. For  holiness  is  entire  purity, — the  absence  of 
all  sin.  And  our  rivalry  of  Gfod  was  itself  the  very 
sum  of  sin.  Now,  if  one  attribute  of  the  Most  High 
could  bo  especially  dear  to  his  nature,  it  would  seem 
to  be  His  holiness.  To  Israel,  Jehovah  proclaimed 
himself  as  "  the  Holy  One  of  Israel ;"  and  in  the  ap- 
*  Isaiah  vi.  3.  f  Romans  iii  23. 


28  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

pellation  selected  to  honor  the  Third  Person  in  tho 
adorable  Trinity,  the  Divine  Spirit  is  called  not  the 
Mighty,  not  the  Wise,  not  the  High,  not  the  Gracious, 
■ — but  the  Holy  Spirit.  So  in  the  Atonement,  the 
cro^Yning  manifestation  of  the  Divine  perfections,  the 
schenae  was  intended  especially  to  advance  the  claims 
of  Holiness.  Of  Holiness,  Justice  or  Righteousness 
is  an  indispensable  and  a  prominent  element.  The 
Cross  of  Christ  was  intended  to  show  God  just  in 
making  man  again  just ;  to  vindicate  the  Holiness  as 
well  as  to  commend  the  Mercy  of  Heaven  ;  to  remove 
the  unholiness  of  man,  and  to  fit  him  by  the  redemp- 
tion and  regeneration  for  the  stainless  purity  of  the 
world  above,  which  he  had  forfeited.  And  this  at- 
tribute of  the  Divine  Nature,  it  is  also,  that  most 
alarms  man.  AVe  shrink  from  death  because  we  then 
instinctively  expect  to  be  brought  nearer  to  God ;  and 
in  the  sense  of  our  moral  dissimilitude  we  tremble  to 
bring  our  own  sinfulness  before  His  eyes,  too  pure  to 
look  upon  iniquity.  Upon  Holiness,  then,  God  lays  the 
most  earnest  stress  in  the  title  He  assumes,  and  in 
the  atonement  He  devises ;  and  upon  holiness  man 
may  well  ponder,  since  the  Fall  lost  it ;  and  on  the 
approach  of  death  it  is  his  loss  of  this  which  over- 
casts the  eternal  world,  and  makes  the  expected  vision 
of  God  one  of  terror  and  vengeance  ;  "  a  fearful  look- 
ing for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation  that  shall 
devour  the  adversaries." 

But  what  is  God's  Name  ?  Amongst  mankind,  the 
name  is  that  by  which  we  distinguish  and  more  or 
less  perfectly  describe   each   other.     It   is    a   man's 


LECTUREir.  29 

known  title,  or  appellation.  At  times  giving  to  it  a 
larger  sense,  we  mean  by  it  all  a  man's  character  as 
displayed  before  his  fellows ;  and  we  speak  of  one 
whose  reputation  is  widely  known  and  highly  ad- 
mired, as  having  won  "  a  great  name."  In  this  latter 
and  larger  application  of  it,  the  term  then  means  some- 
thing more  than  the  man's  family  appellative,  or  the 
description  of  his  personal  appearance,  or  of  any  of 
his  isolated  acts ;  it  comprises  his  entire  character  as 
a  moral  agent, — all  that  his  fellow-creatures  say  of 
him.  And  men  may  thus  be  well  known  to  us  by 
name,  of  whom  we  have  no  personal  knowledge.  The 
votes  of  a  large  portion  of  our  people  were  cast  in  the 
election  that  has  just  gone  by*  for  individuals  whom 
they  had  not  seen,  but  whom  they  knew  by  their 
character  or  general  "  name,"  It  was  a  suffrage 
given  to  names  rather  than  to  personal  associates  and 
neighbors.  G-od,  as  a  Spirit,  properly  invisible  and 
dwelling  in  light  inaccessible,  is  separated  from  our 
bodily  senses ;  and  can  to  us  be  known,  only  by  this 
His  general  character,  or  Name.  And  in  this  larger 
sense,  the  term  before  us  is  used  in  Scripture  to  de- 
scribe all  those  signs  and  deeds  by  which  G-od  makes 
known  to  us  His  moral  essence ; — all  the  manifesta- 
tions which  He  has  given  of  His  nature  and  purposes ; 
— as  well  as  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  titles  and 
appellations  which  He  has  chosen  to  proclaim  as  His 
own.  As  His  Scripture,  or  His  word,  is  a  fuller  and 
clearer  manifestation  of  His  character  than  is  con- 
tained m  this  material  structure — the  handiwork  of  God 
*  This  sermon  was  delivered  in  November,  1848. 


30  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

—the  visible  Creation ; — so,  consequently,  this  volume 
of  Divine  Scripture  and  the  Revelation  there  made  are 
an  important  part  of  liis  Name.  As  the  Son,  in  his  in- 
carnation, yet  more  clearly  and  yet  more  nearly  mani- 
fested Grod,  he,  the  embodying  Messiah,  is  called  the 
Word,  of  God.  For  as  the  word  or  speech  is  the  em- 
bodiment of  human  thought ;  so  his  humanity  was 
the  embodiment  of  the  Divine  Thought,  or  rather,  of 
the  Divine  Spirit.  Moses  had,  when  sheltered  in  the 
cleft  of  the  rock,  heard  the  Name  proclaimed.  Elijah 
caught  its  "  still,  small  voice."  But  Christ  was  the 
distinct,  full,  and  loud  utterance  of  the  Name — articu- 
late, legible,  and  tangible, — complete  and  enduring. 
And  all  the  institutions  which  Christ  himself  estab- 
lished, or  which  his  apostles  after  him  ordained  by 
his  authority,  since  those  institutions  bear  His  Name, 
or  illustrate  His  character,  are  to  be  regarded  as 
coming  within  the  scope  of  the  text.  The  Sabbath, 
— the  Bible, — the  Sanctuary  or  place  of  worship, — the 
Church,  or  the  worshippers  there, — the  ministry, — 
and  each  Christian  convert — are  found,  then,  to  be 
embraced  within  the  range  and  dread  shadow  of  this 
great  and  dreadful  Name.  Far  as  G-od  is  seen  m 
these,  and  shown  by  them  ; — His  character,  so  illus- 
trated and  made  manifest  in  them — is  to  be  treated 
with  lowliest  reverence,  as  being  awfully  sacred  and 
infinitely  holy.  We  do  not  plead  in  the  interest  and 
behalf  of  man,  for  any  sacred  and  inviolable  caste ; 
we  only  assert,  for  the  honor  of  Grod,  that  what  man 
does  at  His  command,  and  to  His  glory,  should  be 
treated  with  reverence,  just  as  the  acts  of  an  embas- 


L  t:  C  T  U  R  E     I  I.  31 

sador,  duly  commissioned,  may  not  be  dissevered  from 
the  rights  and  majesty  of  the  Sovereign  in  whose  name 
he  speaks. 

As  God  is  Himself  a  bodiless  Spirit,  it  is  especially 
the  condition  of  our  spirits  towards  Him  that  He 
regards.  Mortal  kings  accept  bodily  service,  and  the 
allegiance  of  the  lips  and  the  knee,  and  the  stately  cer- 
emonial, because  they  can  go  no  deeper  and  see  no 
further.  But  G-od's  glance  goes  to  the  inner  and  in- 
visible reality  of  the  man,  and  asks  him,  as  the  subject 
and  worshipper.  The  state  of  our  sentiments  and  af- 
fections, as  regarding  Him,  He  most  intently  and  con- 
stantly eyes.  Duly  to  hallow  His  Name,  requires  then 
not  only  a  reverence  consisting  in  outward  and  visible 
tokens, — a  worship  of  the  lip  and  the  knee, — but  much 
more  the  homage  and  devotion  of  the  inmost  soul.  The 
unrenewed  heart  cannot  really  hallow  the  name  of  Je- 
hovah. And  as  the  spirit  of  adoption  V\^as  needed,  to 
cry,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  "  Abba,  Father  ;" 
so  the  Spirit  of  Holiness  is  requisite  to  make  us  compe- 
tent worshippers  of  Grod's  holy  Name.  But,  as  was  in- 
timated, our  text  painfully  impeaches,  as  by  implica- 
tion, our  own  moral  fitness  to  appear  in  the  outer 
circle  of  Grod's  worshippers.  The  light  of  Heaven 
soems  to  repel  the  approach  in  us  of  Chaos  and  old 
Night.  How  can  those,  w-ho  themselves  are  but  the 
unhallowed  and  profane,  hallow  what  is  their  Maker's  ? 
Is  it  not  an  Uzzah's  forbidden  hand  on  the  ark,  and  an 
Uzziah's  lawless  grasp  of  the  censer  ?  And  how  fre- 
quently and  habitually  is  this  unhappy  dissonance  be- 
tween us  and  the  present  petition  brought  out,  by  the 


32  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

close  scrutiny  of  our  way  and  the  devout  and  earnest 
study  of  our  hearts. 

II.  Let  us,  then,   consider  the   sins  of  act  and  of 
thought,  which  this  petition  condemns  in  us. 

1.  The  profanity  then  which  trifles  with  God's 
Name  and  Titles,  is  evidently  most  irreligious ;  and  it 
is,  though  so  rife  a  sin,  most  unnatural,  however 
easily  and  however  often  it  be  committed.  Other 
sins  may  plead  the  gratification  of  some  strong  incli- 
nation,— the  promise  of  enjoyment  or  of  profit,  which 
they  bring  with  them,  and  the  storm  of  emotion  sweep- 
ing the  tempted  into  them.  But  what  of  gain  or  of 
pleasure  may  be  hoped  from  the  thoughtless  and  irrev- 
erent,— the  trivial  or  the  defiant  use  of  that  dread 
Name,  which  angels  utter  with  adoring  awe?  That 
the  sin  is  so  unprovoked  adds  to  its  enormity.  That 
it  is  so  common,  fearfully  illustrates  the  wide  remo- 
val which  sin  has  made  of  man's  sympathies  from  the 
God  to  whom  he  owes  all  good  ; — rendering  him  for- 
getful alike  of  his  obligations  for  past  kindnesses,  and 
of  his  exposure  to  the  coming  judgment.  How  mur- 
derously do  men  guard  the  honor  of  their  own  paltry 
names,  and  how  keenly  would  they  resent,  on  the  part 
of  a  fellow-sinner,  though  their  equal,  the  heartlessness 
that  should  continually,  in  his  narratives,  and  jests, 
and  falsehoods,  call  into  use  the  honor  of  a  buried 
father,  and  the  purity  of  a  revered  and  departed 
mother,  and  employ  them  as  the  expletive  or  emphatic 
portions  of  his  speech — the  tacks  to  bestua  and  emboss 
his  frivolous  talk.  And  is  the  memory  of  an  earthly, 
and  inferior,  and  erring  parent  deserving  of  more  re- 


LECTUREII.  33 

gard  tlian  that  of  the  Father  in  Heaven,  the  All-hoiv, 
and  the  Almighty,  and  the  All-gracious  ?  And  if  pro- 
fanity be  evil,  what  is  perjury,  but  a  daring  endeavor 
to  make  the  God  of  Truth  and  Justice  an  accomplice 
in  deception  and  robbery  ?  The  vain  repetitions  of 
superstitious  and  formal  prayer ; — the  acted  devoticuis 
of  the  theatre,  when  the  dramatist  sets  up  worship  on 
the  stage  as  a  portion  of  the  entertainment ; — and  the 
profane  intermixture  in  some  christian  poets  of  the 
gods  of  Heathenism  with  the  true  Maker  and  Ruler 
of  Heaven,  re-installing,  as  poets  both  Protestant  and 
('atholic  have  done,  the  Joves  and  Apollos,  the  Mi- 
ner vas  and  Venuses  of  a  guilty  Mythology,  in  the  ex- 
istence and  honor,  of  which  Christianity  had  stri])t 
them, — will  not  be  past  over,  as  venial  lapses,  in  the 
day  when  the  Majesty  of  Heaven  shall  make  inquisi- 
tion of  guilt  and  requisition  for  vengeance. 

And  so,  as  to  those  institutions,  upon  which  Jeho- 
vah has  put  His  name,  just  as  an  earthly  monarch, 
sets  his  seal  and  broad  arrow  on  edict  and  property, — 
the  putting  to  profane  and  common  uses  what  G-od 
has  claimed  for  sacred  purposes,  betrays  an  evident 
failure  to  hallow  His  Name.  The  employment  of  the 
day  of  hallowed  rest,  in  riot  and  sloth, — or  in  the  sale, 
or  the  purchase,  or  the  perusal  of  the  Sabbath  new's- 
paper ; — the  Sabbath  jaunt,  disquieting  and  defding 
the  rural  peace  of  the  regions  around  by  the  eruption 
of  the  follies  and  vices  of  the  city,  weekly  disgorging 
itself  along  the  highway  and  the  railroad,  and  the 
water-course  ; — and  all  the  conversation  and  employ 

ments  inconsistent  with  the  sanctity  of  the  day  of  sa« 

2* 


34  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

cred  worship  and  repose — ^these  infringe  on  the  rights 
and  lionors  of  God's  name.  So  irreverence,  cr  form- 
alism ; — a  vain  display  in  the  House  of  God,  and  a  su- 
perstitious or  a  hypocritical  employment  of  the  sanc- 
tuary, all  these  too  trench  upon  the  glory  of  the  Divine 
Name.  And  in  the  church,  more  properly  so  called, — 
the  body  of  living  worshippers, — God's  name  may  be 
desecrated  when  too  much  is  claimed  for  the  organiza- 
tion ;  as  when  the  church  is  put  instead  of  Christ  as 
though  it  were  in  itself  the  way  of  salvation,  or  when 
the  church  is  set  instead  of  the  Scriptures,  as  though 
its  councils  and  doctors  were  the  Standard  of  Truth, 
or  when  the  church  is  exalted  instead  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  as  though  its  ministrations  and  sacraments 
were  the  Givers  of  religious  life.  And  His  Name  may 
be  profaned,  on  the  other  hand,  when  too  little  regard 
is  shown  to  his  church,  as  when  christian  profession  is 
held  needless,  or  when  membership  is  made  worldly, 
or  when  the  synagogue  of  Satan  is  made  to  hold  fel- 
lowship with  the  temple  of  the  Lord.  This  last  seems 
as  flagrant  a  misdemeanor,  as  it  would  have  been,  had 
Solomon  from  the  mount  of  Offence  and  Corruption, 
where  he  worshipped  the  gods  of  Paganism,  flung 
a  bridge  across  the  intervening  chasm,  to  bind  the 
hill  and  shrine  of  abominations  with  the  Mount 
Moriah,  the  site  of  God's  own  chosen  temple,  and  of 
rites  and  victims  that  prefigured  the  World's  One  Ran- 
som. What  fellowship,  asks  an  apostle,  has  Christ 
with  Belial  ?  And  in  the  christian  ministry^  is  it  not 
a  taking  of  God's  name  in  vain,  when  the  oflice  is 
either  unduly  extolled,  as  if  it  were  a  sacrificial  priest- 


LECTURE     II.  33 

hood  ; — or  unduly  depreciated,  as  though  its  incuni' 
bent  were  but  an  ecclesiastical  hireling, — or  when  the 
sacred  work  is  thoughtlessly  assumed,  as  a  mere  pro- 
fession, or  for  slight  cause  relinquished  ?  And  so  of 
the  Bible,  God's  book; — true  regard  for  its  Author 
will  dictate  a  reverent  use  of  the  volume  itself,  as  when 
the  young  Edward  the  Sixth  of  England  uplifted  and 
kissed  the  Bible,  which  some  of  his  thoughtless  attend- 
ants had  used  as  a  step  to  reach  some  higher  object, 
And  still  more  will  true  piety  demand  a  religious  re- 
gard for  the  contents  of  the  book.  We  shall  not  set 
our  own  carnal  reason  above  that  Bible's  statements  ; 
nor  consult  it  without  prayerful  conference  with  that 
Spirit  of  whom  it  testifies,  and  for  whose  influence  it 
bids  us  implore.  We  shall  not  wrest,  or  parody,  or 
lightly  quote  its  infallible  words.  When  the  canonized 
Bona  venture,  a  cardinal  of  the  Romish  church,  took  a 
portion  of  that  Scripture,  the  Book  of  Psalms,  and  con- 
verted it  into  a  Litany  for  the  A^irgin  Mary,  by  sub- 
stituting throughout  her  name  in  the  Psalms  for  G-od's, 
was  not  the  Lord's  Prayer  protesting,  as  by  anticipa- 
tion, against  this  rude  extrusion  of  the  one  Divine 
Name  ? — this  conversion  of  the  Psalms  into  a  moral 
Palimpsest,  where  the  Creator's  name  was  expunged 
to  receive  the  creature's  ?  And  could  such  a  ritual  as 
that  which  the  Romish  saint  had  thus  provided,  reach 
Heaven ;  would  not  Christ's  meek  mother  turn  away, 
in  Paradise,  with  a  holy  indignation  from  the  odors  of 
that  rank  idolatry,  which  flung  around  the  footstool 
occupied  by  her,  incense  embezzled  and  robbed  from 
her  Son's  censer  and  treasury,  and  throne  of  supremest 


36  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

dominion  ?  Would  she  not  disown  sucli  tfeasor. 
against  Him,  who  was,  at  once,  her  Maker,  her  Re- 
deeiper,  and  her  child?  Even,  when  busied  in  the 
defence  of  scriptural  truth,  there  may  be  a  violence 
of  temper  and  language  unbecoming  and  irreverent  to 
G  od's  holy  Name.  With  all  the  wit  and  wisdom  of 
feouth's  sermons,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Doddridge 
spoke  not  causelessly,  when  he  said  of  them  that 
South  seemed  to  assert  even  Truth  itself  with  the 
mocking  and  envenomed  spirit  of  a  fiend.  Holy  truths 
have  been,  even  by  churchmen,  wolfishly  debated  and 
rabidly  defended. 

2.  But  from  the  sins  in  act,  which  this  prayer  de- 
nounces, let  us  pass  to  the  sins  more  secret,  but  if 
possible  yet  more  deadly,  those  of  thought, — the  errors 
and  idolatries  of  the  heart.  Jehovah's  chosen  and 
most  august  domain  is  that  where  human  legislators 
cannot  enter  or  even  look — the  hidden  world  of  man's 
soul.  And  in  the  speculations,  and  in  the  mute  and 
veiled  affections  of  that  inner  sphere,  how  much  may 
G-od  be  profaned  and  provoked. 

If,  for  instance,  instead  of  ''  the  beauty  of  holiness," 
which  His  Word  and  Nature  alike  require,  we  hope 
to  conciliate  and  content  Him  by  the  mere  beauty  of 
Art, — the  stately  edifice, — the  wonders  of  the  pencil 
and  the  chisel, — the  lofty  dome  and  the  tuneful  choir, 
— and  the  elaborate  spectacle, — and  the  gorgeous  rit- 
ual,— is  He  Jiot  dishonored  by  such  oblivion  of  the 
true  spirit  of  His  religion? 

And  if,  with  the  Rationalist  on  the  one  hand,  in  our 
triews  of  the  Divine  character,  we  contrive  to  obscura 


L  E  C  T  U  R  E     I  I.  37 

from  our  theological  system  the  Divine  Holiness,  and 
exaggerate  the  Divine  Mercy  at  the  expense  of  the 
Divine  Puriiy, — if  we  proclaim  that  the  Incarnation 
and  Redemption  were  needless,  and  are  but  excres- 
cences on  a  system  of  hope  and  salvation  for  sinners : 
—Or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  antichristian 
churdics  of  Rome  and  the  East,  we  crowd  the  Mercy- 
seat  with  niany  and  inferior  occupants,  and  virtually 
rend  from  the  Saviour  the  ephod  of  priestly  interces- 
sion which  He  only  is  competent  to  wear,  and  lend 
the  vesture,  stript  from  Him,  to  the  mediators  many 
of  our  saints'  calendar,  with  every  new  canonization 
adding  a  fresh  lodger  to  the  house  of  our  idols,  and 
drawing  a  fresh  veil  over  the  cross  of  the  one  Atone- 
ment ; — by  either  of  these  opposite  errors  we  profane 
the  Name  of  Grod,  that  one  Saviour,  Crucified  yet 
Divine,  beside  whom  there  is  none  else. 

Or  if,  in  our  Science,  we  veil  the  personal  and  re- 
vealed Jehovah  of  the  Scriptures  under  the  dim  and 
vague  and  impersonal  imagery  of  "  Nature,"  and  the 
"  Powers  of  Nature,"  and  the  "  Laws  of  Nature," 
and  put  as  far  as  possible  out  of  view  all  marks  of 
special  design  or  special  intervention  in  the  existing 
frame  of  things ;  and  if,  whilst  we  allow  of  a  Creator 
and  a  Sovereign,  we  strive  to  present  Him  as  having 
given  up  His  share  in  the  machinery  of  the  Universe 
long  since,  and  as  scorning  to  soil  his  august  hands 
with  the  pettinesses  of  our  animalcule  globe ; — He 
who  sits  in  the  heavens  and  regards  what  is  done  on 
the  earth,  will  not  hold  guiltless  our  endeavor  thus 
made,  virtually  to  efface  the  Maker's  stamp  and  super- 


88  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

ficription  from  his  own  handiwork,  and  our  effort  as 
fruitless  as  it  is  audacious,  to  wrench  the  Sovereign's 
signature  and  seal  from  His  own  edicts  and  procla- 
mations. And  from  Natural  Science  to  pass  to  Na- 
tional History,  if,  in  the  annals  of  the  nations,  we 
resolve  all  into  the  casual  play  of  secondary  causes, 
and  leave  Providence  no  helm  to  grasp,  and  the  stu- 
dent of  history  no  chart  and  star  to  eye,  then,  too,  we 
sin  against  God's  Name :  for  we  believe  that  it  is  be- 
ginning to  be  generally  felt,  that  God  must  be  remem- 
bered to  bring  continuity  and  unison  into  the  tangled 
skein  of  human  affairs  ;  and  the  prophecies  of  Scrip- 
ture are  found  after  all  to  furnish  the  only  symmetri- 
cal frame-work,  and  skeleton,  and  scaffolding  of  the 
Universal  History  of  the  race. 

And  wretchedly  must  he  be  considered  as  offending 
against  the  spirit  of  this  prayer,  who  in  his  Panthe- 
istic philosophy  would  confound  man  the  sinner  and 
Abaddon  the  Tempter,  with  the  Lord  God  the  Creator, 
the  Redeemer,  and  the  Judge  of  the  race  ;  in  whose 
Pandemoniac  alembic  all  religions  and  all  existences 
are  found  to  coagulate  into  one  Being, — and  that 
Being  is  at  one  and  the  same  time,  self,  and  the 
universe,  and  God.  Milton  made  Satan  daringly 
blaspheme  when  he  said,  "Evil,  be  thou  my  good;" 
but  Pantheism  vaults  yet  higher  in  its  atrocious 
temerity,  wdien  it  virtually  exclaims,  "  Evil  and  Crood 
are  one  ; — Apollyon  is  but  an  incarnation  of  Jehovah ; 
— and  Sin  an  effluence  of  Holiness,  or  Heaven  seea 
in  a  side-light."  In  the  image  described  by  the  Chal- 
dean king,  the  Statue  fell,  for  its  feet  were  of  kneaded 


L.  K  c  T  u  R  E    r  r.  39 

iron  and  clay.  But  this  view  of  Pantheistic  wisdom 
would  make  not  ihe  feet  of  the  Universe,  but  its  very 
head,  a  strange  intermixture  of  gold  and  mire,  gather- 
ing into  one  compound  Deity,  Sin,  and  Salvation,  evil 
and  good,  truth  and  falsehood.  Heaven  and  Hell,  man 
and  fiend,  and  Grod  ;  and  virtually  teaching  man,  as 
the  Narcissus  of  all  existence,  in  the  wide  mirror  of 
thb  Universe,  to  behold  and  adore  but  one  God>  and 
that  Cxod  the  reflection  of  his  own  petty,  frail,  and 
sinful  Self 

Much  of  the  Catholicism  and  Liberalism  of  our 
times  is,  when  analyzed,  found  running  into  this  chan- 
nel. It  proposes  to  reconcile  all  religions  by  going 
back  of  peculiarities  in  Revelation,  and  giving  tip 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  gospels,  to  procure  the  relin- 
quishment by  Mahometans  and  Pagans  of  the  Koran, 
and  the  Zendavesta  and  the  Shasters.  As  if,  in  our 
Revolution,  a  peacemaker  had  appeared  to  counsel 
union  and  reconciliation  with  England,  by  abjuring 
and  suppressing  the  Continental  Congress,  and  its 
captain  and  champion,  Washington,  and  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  it  had  issued.  It  is  giving  up 
Truth  to  conciliate  Error;  and  appeasing  Wrong  by 
the  sacrifice  of  Right.  The  peace  so  clumsily  made, 
in  our  Revolutionary  struggle,  would  have  been  based 
on  injustice,  and  would  have  issued  in  bondage.  And 
the  theological  or  philosophical  truce,  that  is  to  be 
patched  up  by  the  surrender  of  Christianity,  is  the 
old  fable  revived,  of  a  peace  made  between  the  sheep 
and  the  wolves  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  Shepherd,  whoso 
vigilance  alone  had  saved  the  first  from  the  fangs  of 


40  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  last.  As  to  the  gain,  what  is  the  race  benefited 
by  stripping  them  of  religion,  and  robbing  them  of 
Heaven  and  conscience  and  Christ, — and  by  deifying 
man,  and  by  uncrowning  and  undeifying  the  God  that 
made  and  governs  man?  Man  remains,  spite  of  your 
philosophy, — tlie  sufferer, — the  sinner, — and  the  mor- 
tal still ; — needing  a  consolation  and  sustentation, 
which  neither  self  nor  the  universe,  apart  from  G-otl 
can  ever  supply.  And  the  Lord  who  made  man, — as 
He  has  not  borrowed  leave  of  your  philosophy  to  come 
into  existence, — is  not  likely  to  abdicate  His  throne 
or  terminate  His  eternity  at  the  summons  of  your 
arrogant  Liberalism.  And  what,  then,  are  yon  the 
better,  if  the  Chancery  of  Heaven  disown  your  bold 
treaty  ? 

In  men's  heai-ts,  then,  and  in  men's  lives,  there  is 
much  which  this  prayer  condemns.  All  derogatory 
views  of  G-od's  nature,  and  all  derogatory  treatment 
of  His  titles  and  institutions,  come  within  the  same 
category  that  dooms,  though  in  varied  grades  of  guilt 
and  of  woe,  the  blasphemer  and  the  perjurer.  Let  us 
now, 

HI.  Consider  the  duties  to  which  this  prayer,  for  a 
hallowing  of  our  Father's  name,  pledges  us.  As,  in 
order  to  hallow  God's  name,  we  must  ourselves  be- 
come holy.  Repentance  and  Regeneration  are  evidently 
required  to  acceptable  service  before  the  Lord  our  God. 
Are  Christians  called  vessels  of  the  house  of  God  ?  It 
is  needful  that  they  be  purified  "  to  become  vessels 
meet  for  the  Master's  use."  The  vase  must  be  cleansed 
for   the  manna.     Are  they  to  shine,  in  steady  liqw  I 


LECTUREIl.  41 

lustre,  as  liglits  in  the  world  ?  The  windows,  through 
which  the  unqucnched  testimony  beams  out  upon  the 
stormy  seas, — and  the  riirrors  in  wliich  these  beams 
are  gathered  and  concentrated, — must  not  be  begrimed 
witli  sin  or  painted  over  by  heresy.  Are  they  temples 
of  the  Holy  G-host  ?  Body  and  soul  must  bear  memo- 
rials of  the  consecration.  "  Be  ye  holy,  for  T  am 
holy,"  was  the  injunction  of  the  Old  Testament.  "  Be 
ye  holy  in  all  manner  of  conversation,"  is  in  like  man- 
ner the  precept  of  the  New  Dispensation.  "  Reverence 
thyself,"  was  the  proud  motto  of  the  Pagan  sage  ;  but 
Christianity  more  wisely  and  safely  bids  us,  in  our 
sinful  self,  to  seek  the  enthronement,  and  to  reverence 
the  image  of  Grod  in  Christ,  that  Christ  who  is,  at 
once,  the  Reconciled  and  the  Reconciling  God, — Jus- 
tice propitiated  to  man,  and  Mercy  winning  man  back 
to  God.  Are  Christians  the  living  epistles  of  Christ  ? 
They  are  to  see  to  it,  that  they  do  not  falsify  the  sig- 
nature or  dishonor  the  Name  of  God,  by  becoming  ob- 
literated and  mouldering  monuments,  or  inscriptions, 
interpolated  and  forged,  and  undecipherable  in  the 
record  they  bear, 

2.  And,  as  a  consequence  of  this  growing  holiness, 
Christians  must  grow  in  lowliness  and  self-abasement. 
Much  of  the  misery  which  our  vanity  undergoes,  and 
much  of  the  bitter  controversy  that  has  rent  and  de- 
graded the  churches,  has  grown  out  of  a  failure  in 
this  respect — an  oblivion  of  this  prayer.  In  the  dispo- 
sition to  advance  himself  in  the  esteem  of  his  fellow- 
disciples,  a  good  man  may  virtually  say  in  his  speech, 
ere  he  is  aware  :  "  Let  my  name  be  canonized,"  when 


42  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

he  should  be  striving  to  liave  Christ's  name  sanctified- 
And  so,  even  %A'hilst  not  thus  erring  as  to  ourselves, 
we  may  err,  in  the  like  spirit  of  self-exaltation,  as  tc 
our  spiritual  leaders,  our  religious  parties  and  parti- 
zans,  and  our  chosen  models  of  christian  perfection, 
and  our  human  standards  of  christian  truth.  The 
second  and  declining  stage  in  the  history  of  every 
great  religious  reformation,  has  been  thus  marked. 
In  the  first  and  purer  age,  the  true-hearted  leaders 
forget  self,  and  think  of  the  truth  only,  and  of  the 
Master,  and  of  the  due  vindication  and  honor  of  these. 
But  in  the  next  generation,  the  leaders  of  the  genera- 
tion past  have  become  demigods,  and  must  have  their 
funeral  monuments  erected  as  having  become  morally, 
to  their  disciples,  the  new  Pillars  of  Hercules  beyond 
which  Truth  may  not  travel,  nor  Research  dare  to 
pass  with  her  adventurous  foot.  Luther,  ere  his  death, 
saw  the  growth  and  guilt  of  this  spirit,  and  denounced 
those  who  would  make  the  reform  his,  as  if  it  were 
his  property  and  act  rather  than  Christ's.  Robinson, 
of  Leyden,  when  bidding  the  Puritan  fathers  farewell, 
as  they  were  already  turning  their  faces  to  the  forests 
of  this  Western  world,  warned  them  against  the  error 
that  had  made  the  Lutheran  refuse  to  go  beyond  Lu- 
ther, and  the  Calvinist  beyond  Calvin.  We,  of  this 
land  where  New  England  has  borne  so  large  and  glo- 
rious a  share  in  leavening  the  national  character,  are 
probably  in  some  danger  of  idolatrous  homage  to  the 
names  of  the  Puritan  Fathers.  It  is  so  easj  and  so 
common  an  infirmity,  to  let  the  priest  glide  from  the 
altar  where  he  only  serves,  into  the  very  shrine,  where 


lecture:  I.  43 

he  may  fill  the  throne, — to  make  the  spiritual  guide 
virtually  the  spiritual  god^  and  to  treat  those  by  ivhom 
we  have  believed  in  Christ  as  if  they  were  those  in 
whom  we  have  believed ;  and  we  thus  extol,  and 
o-uard.  and  hallow  their  names  instead  of  G-od's.  And 
yet  whatever  of  talent,  or  virtue,  or  prowess  man  may 
display,  how  bedwarfed  and  defective  are  the  greatest 
of  mere  men  when  tried  by  the  stern  standard  of  holi- 
ness. "  The  Hero-worship,"  of  which  a  strong  think- 
er* of  our  times  speaks  so  much,  is  found  in  all  creeds 
and  communions ;  and  yet  what  are  the  world's  he- 
roes, or  the  church's  heroes,  if  Holiness,  entire  and 
blameless,  be  the  requisite  of  moral  grandeur  ;  being 
the  essence  of  celestial  Jieroism,  as  it  assuredly  is  ? 
Alexander  the  drunkard, — Caesar  the  debauched, — 
Napoleon  the  sanguinary  and  rapacious  ; — how  shrink 
they  all,  and  wither,  and  shrivel,  as  the  measuring- 
rod  of  Grod's  temple  is  laid  upon  their  factitious  great- 
ness. And,  even  in  the  worthies  of  the  church,  from 
Abraham  to  DaviJ,  and  from  David  to  Peter,  and  from 
Apostles  to  Reformers,  and  from  Reformers  to  Chris- 
tians of  our  own  times,  how  evident  is  the  incompe- 
tency of  any  one  and  of  all,  to  brook  the  trial  of  that 
broad  law  of  Holiness.  The  world  is  gone  astray  in 
its  idea  of  greatness.  It  needs  to  know  better,  and  to 
value  more  the  only  true  majesty,  that  of  holiness,  or 
moral  excellence.  We  rear  the  costly  monument, 
and  "  build  the  lofty  rhyme"  to  heroes,  and  fail  to  see 
that  God  the  Holy,  is  the  centre  and  standard  of  great- 
ness ;  and  that  until,  in  lowliness,  and  contrition,  and 
*    Carlyle. 


44  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

self-consecration,  we  turn  to  him,  we  may  be  flattered, 
and  feared,  and  hated,  and  served  of  man ;  but  hon- 
ored of  G^od  and  really  great  we  cannot  be.  Upon 
this  ascent  of  man  to  true  greatness  by  regeneration, 
how  little  do  even  Christians  think.  We  know  of  but 
one  Epic  in  the  language  of  Christian  Britain  that  turns 
upon  its  hero's  conversion ;  it  is  Southey's  Roderick 
the  Goth. 

3.  Pledged  thus  to  holiness,  and  to  lowliness  as  a 
consequence  of  understanding  the  true  nature  and  the 
wide  compass  of  holiness,  Christians  are  again,  in  cry- 
ing to  their  Father  for  the  sanctification  of  His  Name, 
pledged  to  solicitude  for  the  conversion  of  the  world. 
Loving  His  praises,  they  cannot  but  be  distressed  with 
the  scorns  and  blasphemies  lavished  on  Him.  Every 
new  trophy  of  God's  converting  grace,  is  the  kindling 
of  a  new  censer  to  send  up  its  odors  before  the  throne, 
and  the  enlisting  of  a  new  voice  to  bear  one  day  its 
part  in  the  anthems  of  adoring  worship  in  Heaven, 
and  meanwhile  to  serve  in  the  choir  of  availing  inter- 
cession for  earth.  In  each  such  addition  to  the  num- 
ber of  those  extolling  and  invoking  His  Name,  Christ 
rejoices  afresh,  in  the  new  reward  of  His  redeeming 
agonies  ; — He  sees  of  the  travail  of  His  soul  and  is  sat- 
isfied ;  the  Spirit,  too  exults,  in  the  fresh  witness  of  His 
Power  and  Truth  ;  and  the  Father,  in  another  prodigal 
won  back  from  exile,  and  impoverishment,  and  perdition, 
to  the  paternal  mansion  and  bosom.  For  errorists  car- 
icature the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  churches,  when 
ihey  represent  that  ordinary  and  orthodox  faith,  as 
making  the   Father   the  austere  and   inflexible,  and 


LECTURE     II.  45 

Christ  the  loving  and  gracious.  The  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  alike  free  and  gracious,  and 
abounding  in  mercy.  And  the  Atonement,  which  also 
these  errurists  travesty,  is  not  Love  in  the  Son  sacri- 
ficed to  vengeance  in  the  Father  ;  but  Mercy  guarding 
Holiness,  and  Holiness  commissioning  Mercy ;  the 
harmonizing  in  one  wondrous  Redeeming  Scheme,  of 
Ihe  common  attributes  of  each  person  in  the  adorable 
Trinity.  We  say  this  in  passing.  To  return  then ; 
each  new  convert  is  a  new  point  of  radiation  for  the 
Divine  glory.  God  glories  over  them,  and  good  men 
and  angels  glorify  God  in  them.  For  whilst  thus 
glorifying  God  in  aiding  the  conversion  of  others,  we 
not  only  hallow  the  Name  here,  but  we  enhance  the 
joys  and  songs  of  those  who  hallow  it  th'ire.  The 
celestial  echo  is  deeper  and  louder  than  the  earthly 
joy  of  a  church  on  the  footstool  here  below,  welcom- 
ing the  convert  whose  deliverance  awakens  that  re- 
mote rejoicing,  and  those  higher  melodies.  For  the 
penitent  here,  and  his  Christian  associates  on  earth, 
do  not  understand  either  the  terrors  of  the  v\^oe  now 
escaped,  or  the  horrors  of  the  sin  now  forgiven,  or  the 
glories  of  the  salvation  now  won,  or  the  holiness  of  the 
Master  and  Friend  now  found, — as  all  these  are  under- 
stood by  those  who  stand  within  the  veil,  and  see  the 
hid  len  realities  and  the  just  relations  of  eternal  things. 
Die  ive  know  as  they  know,  would  the  Name  which 
they  hymn  without  weariness,  and  extol  above  every 
name,  be  as  it  is  with  us  vilified  and  blasphemed,  as 
sinners  vilify  and  blaspheme  it ;  or  would  it,  on  the 
other  hand,  be  evaded  and  concealed  as  by  Christians 


46  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

.'t  too  often  is,  from  sliame  and  the  fear  of  man,  veileil 
and  evaded  ? 

And,  lastly,  there  is  another  mode  of  hallowing  thn 
Divine  Name,  of  which  the  thought  may  well  awe 
us.  When  Mercy  has  failed  to  win,  Justice  will  come 
forth  to  subdue  and  incarcerate.  Evil  shall  not  b« 
admitted  to  range  God's  Universe  on  its  mission  ol 
profanation  and  defilement.  The  whole  creation,  mutt 
and  irrational,  is  seen  groaning  because  made  subject 
to  man's  vanity,  but  it  has  been  thus  subjected  not 
willingly  and  only  for  a  time.  It  must  be  released 
and  avenged.  Grod's  sanctity  was  of  old  illustrated 
in  the  blasted  forms  and  scattered  censers  of  Na- 
dab  and  Abihu.  His  comment  upon  it  was,  "  I  will 
be  sanctified  in  them  that  come  nigh  me,  and  before 
all  the  people  will  I  be  glorified."*  The  cities  of 
the  plain  smoked  beneath  the  avenging  bolts  of  that 
Holiness.  Jerusalem,  the  guilty,  had  her  times  of 
calamity  and  overthrow,  from  the  Incarnate  Love 
which  she  had  spurned,  and  the  crucified  Holi- 
ness she  had  mocked.  And  when  the  foul  deities 
of  Grreek  and  Roman  idolatry  quitted  their  fallen 
shrines,  and  Pan  left  to  Christ  the  lands  and  the 
tribes  long  deluded  and  down-trampled,  G-od's  name 
was  hallowed.  Earth — all  earth  is  to  pass  through 
a  fiery  deluge,  and  long  the  haunt  of  Sin,  she  is  to 
roll  out  of  the  burning  baptism  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness — a  habita- 
tion of  holiness.  But  the  filthy  of  our  race  wall,  even 
then,  be  the  filthy  still ;  and  over  their  prison-house. 
*  Leviticus  x.  3. 


LECTURE     II.  47 

and  upon  tlie  dark  folds  of  the  cloud  of  their  torment, 
God's  name  will  be  inscribed, — ^liallowed  in  Ven- 
geance, as  in  Paradise  it  is  hallowed  in  Mercy.  In 
one  mode  or  the  other,  as  the  repentant  or  as  the  obdu- 
rate,— with  the  golden  harp  of  the  world  of  light,  or  id 
the  clanking  fetters  of  eternal  darkness, — we  inevitably 
must,  we  assuredly  shall,  hallow  the  great  Name.  In 
which  method  shall  it  be  ?  As  Samsons,  pinioned 
and  writhing  in  the  dungeon, — or  as  the  restored 
prodigal,  feasting  in  abashed  gratitude  and  unutter- 
able joy  at  the  father's  board  forever  ?  Choose  wisely, 
— choose  soon ;  for  an  eternal  Heaven  or  an  eternal 
Hell  awaits  the  swaying  of  the  poised  balances. 


''fjlti  liiigkm  €nm" 


LECTURE    111 

"'(Ejli]  liiigkni  Cnnit." 

Matthew,  vi  10. 

Has  it  not  come  ?  Must  the  Most  High  await  the 
prayers  of  His  creatures  ere  He  can  become  a  King  ? 
Is  His  dominion  yet  but  remote  and  lingering,  and 
can  the  world  and  Satan  thwart  and  retard  it  ?  Cer- 
tainly nut,  as  to  the  kingdom  of  his  Providence  ; — his 
sovereign  and  uncontrollable  sway  as  the  Former  and 
Upholder  of  all  things.  The  Saviour  Himself  teaches, 
in  this  very  discourse,  that  universal  oversight  and 
supremacy  of  His  Father,  and  presents  it  as  being 
already  come  ;  when  He  tells  of  his  clothing  each  lily, 
and  feeding  all  the  birds  of  the  air,  and  making  the 
showers  to  fall  and  the  sun  to  rise,  on  every  field 
of  every  tiller,  around  the  globe.  He  who  numbers 
the  very  hairs  of  our  head,  and  marks  the  falling 
sparrow,  and  wheels  along  its  orbit  each  vast  and  roll- 
ing world,  needs  not,  and  waits  not  for  us  to  supply 
His  sceptre,  or  to  v/eave  His  imperial  robes,  or  to  con- 
fer, by  our  vote  and  election,  His  crown.  The  very 
necessity  of  His  nature, — as  the  all-pervading,  and  the 


52  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER, 

Most  High,  the  "Wisest,  Best,  and  Mightiest  of  Exist- 
ences,— makes  rule  inseparable  from  his  being.  Sove- 
reignty and  Existence,  are  with  Him  indivisible.  He 
that  Was  and  Is,  and  Is  to  Be,  and  whose  years  are 
from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  is  and  must  be,— 
tlxrough  all  that  Eternity, — King  of  kings,  and  TiOrd 
of  lords ;  and  all  other  beings,  in  commencing  their 
existence,  begin  it,  as  subordinate  to  Him,  and  depend- 
ant upon  Him.  Earth  lies  in  His  grasp.  Hell  quails 
beneath  His  glance.  Heaven  lives  in  His  smile.  And 
when,  from  His  Throne,  He  proclaims,  "  I  am  that  I 
AM," —  the  Universe,  through  all  its  depths  and  all  its 
heights,  responds  in  submissive  awe  :  "  Thou  art,  and 

ALL  THINGS  ARE  OF  ThEE  AND  BY  ThEE,  ANdFOR  ThEE." 

But  the  Kingdom  here  intended,  is  something  very 
different.  It  is  the  dominion  of  His  grace, — that  pro- 
vision of  his  Infinite  Mercy,  by  which  He  is  to  subdue 
our  sinful  race  into  cheerful  allegiance,  and  exulting 
homage,  and  general  service.  This,  as  yet,  has  corao 
but  in  part.  Its  full  and  final  establishment  has  been 
long  the  theme  of  prophecy,  and  the  burden  of  prayer. 
The  movements  of  God  in  His  kingdom  of  Providence 
had  respect  from  the  beginning  to  the  development  ">f 
this  kingdom  of  Grace.  It  had  been  announced  in 
the  garden  of  Eden,  in  the  first  promise,  to  the  first 
offenders  and  parents  of  our  race.  Jacob,  the  dying 
patriarch,  hailed  its  future  glories  in  the  coming  of  the 
Shiloh.  The  Jews,  to  whom  the  Psalms  were  a  fa- 
miliar book,  read  in  the  second  of  those  Psalms  Jeho- 
vah's decree  proclaiming  that  kingdom,  and  inaugura- 
ting His  Son  as  its  potentate.     Daniel,  in  his  visions, 


LECTUREIII.  53 

had  seen  the  four  great  monarchies  of  the  world,  but 
coming  as  the  rival  precursors  of  this  Greater  and 
Better,  and  Heavenly  Kingdom,  imaged  by  the  stone 
cut  out  of  the  mountains  without  hands,  and  fdling 
the  whole  earth.  John  the  Baptist,  our  Saviour's 
forerunner,  had  announced  this  kingdom  as  near  at 
hand.  The  heathen, — familiar  with  the  existence  of 
predictions  that  pointed  to  the  age  in  which  Christ 
was  born  as  the  age,  and  to  Palestine  as  the  scene  of 
His  coming, — looked,  then  and  there,  to  see  one  mak- 
ing his  appearance  who  was  to  rule  the  world.  Herod 
dreaded  it,  and  the  babes  of  Bethlehem  were  mas- 
sacred, in  the  hope,  by  that  indiscriminate  slaughter, 
to  destroy  the  Predestined  King  of  Israel  and  of  all 
other  nations.  Pilate  put  over  the  cross  of  Jesus  an 
inscription,  not  that  Christ  claimed  to  be,  but  that  he 
was  this  King  of  the  Jews  ;  and  the  dying  thief  prayed 
to  be  remembered  of  his  crucified  Lord,  when  that 
Lord  should  come  into  the  full  possession  of  this  his 
kingdom.  Under  various  names,  this  kingdom  was 
the  subject  of  reference  by  our  Saviour,  and  by  his 
apostles  after  his  ascension.  Some  of  the  expressions 
employed  seem  to  represent  it  as  future ;  and  others, 
as,  in  part  at  least,  already  come ;  whilst,  by  the 
countrymen  and  contemporaries  of  our  Saviour,  the 
very  nature  of  the  kingdom  was  misunderstood.  The 
ancient  Jew  desired  but  political  liberty  and  carnal 
aggrandizement ;  and  nailed,  in  scornful  ingratitude, 
to  the  accursed  tree  the  hand  that  offered  him  but  the 
pardon  of  sins,  and  eternal  life,  and  a  home  and  a 
throne  in  light,  instead  of  the  earthly  and  mortal  joys, 


64  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  carnal  and  perishable  honors,  the  poor  and  corrupt- 
ible kingdom,  which  he  was  coveting.  The  threefold 
spell,  which  Satan  tried  in  vain  on  our  Saviour,  in  the 
wilderness,  Rabbinism  had  wielded  over  the  Jewish 
people  but  too  long  and  too  entirely.  They,  unlike 
Jesus,  preferred  bread,  perishable  and  earthly  bread, 
to  the  word  of  God.  They  tempted  the  Most  High  b}' 
expecting  deliverance  and  impunity,  merely  because 
they  were  the  children  of  Abraham,  though  they  flung 
themselves  down,  in  blind  temerity,  from  the  old  and 
S})iritual  faith  of  their  father,  as  from  the  pinnacle  of 
a  temple.  They,  unlike  Christ,  were  willing  to  do 
the  world  and  its  prince  some  homage,  if  they  might 
but  gain  its  kingdoms  and  the  glory  of  them ;  and 
for  these,  the  promised  rewards  of  the  Tempter,  they 
looked  confidingly  and  patiently,  whilst  a  recovered 
Heaven,  proffered  by  the  Redeemer,  swept  rejected 
past  them.  Does  it  seem  harsh  to  any,  to  represent 
the  hardness  of  impenitent  Israel  as  being  the  result 
of  the  influence  of  the  Evil  one?  It  is,  alas,  the 
testimony  of  Scripture,  that  not  Israel  alone,  in  their 
obduracy,  but  all  who  receive  not  Christ,  of  the  Gen- 
tiles as  well,  are  following  Belial  if  they  servo  not 
Jesus.  As  Loyola,  the  foundur  of  the  Jesuit  order, 
said  so  earnestly  and  often,  the  whole  world  is  ranged 
"within  but  two  camps ;  over  the  one  floats  the  banner 
of  the  Dragon,  and  his  name  is  Apollyon,  the  Destroyer, 
and,  above  the  other,  is  waving  the  standard  of  the 
crucified  Lamb,  and  His  name  is  Emmanuel,  "  God 
with  us/'  the  only  Saviour.  The  kingdom  of  Dark- 
ness, and  the  kingdom  of  Light,  divide  the  race ;  and 


LECTURE     III.  55 

each  'convert  and  recruit  to  the  sacramental  host  of 
God's  elect  is  described  as  being  translated  out  of  the 
kingdom  and  power  of  darkness,  having  there  been  by 
nature  a  child  of  wrath,  earning  the  vengeance  of  the 
Almighty  Grod. 

Our  own  land,  in  the  times  of  its  revolutionary 
struggles,  knew  the  miseries  and  snares  of  a  contested 
allegiance.  Then,  the  bonds  of  blood  were  not  found 
sufficient  to  keep  all  of  the  same  home  and  stock, 
firm  on  the  side  either  of  royalty  or  republicanism. 
The  same  household  had  its  political  divisions ;  and 
father  was  set  against  child,  and  brother  against 
brother,  in  their  divergent  views  of  interest  and  safety 
and  duty.  So  now,  a  more  momentous  and  a  moral 
revolution  is  in  its  quiet  progress.  It  is  resisted, 
madly  and  widely.  It  is  sustained  and  urged  on- 
ward, with  unfaltering  zeal  and  eager  hope.  But  the 
friends  and  the  foes  of  this  spiritual  kingdom  are 
often  united  together  by  the  tenderest  and  closest  of 
earthly  bonds.  And  yet  we  know,  that  it  is  no  light 
matter,  in  its  results,  to  himself  and  to  others,  where 
a  man  bestows  his  obedience  and  subjection.  He  who 
contests  the  rightful  government  of  the  land  which 
he  inhabits,  will  find  the  tax-gatherer  and  the  magis- 
trate, and  the  soldier, — if  his  resistance  require  it, — 
all  against  him.  So  he  who  withholds  from  the  Maker 
of  his  soul  its  submission,  and  from  the  Creator  of  the 
Universe  the  control  of  His  creatures,  must  not  deem 
his  offence  venial ;  or  suppose  that  his  punishment 
will  be  either  lightly  inflicted  or  easily  evaded.  If 
any  ask,  "Why  is  not  the  full  power  of  God's  Provi* 


56  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

dential  Empire  put  forth  at  once,  to  crush  all  opposi- 
tion to  the  Messiah's  Kingdom  of  Grrace,  we  answer: 
Are  such  objectors  sure,  that  in  so  doing  God  would 
as  much  benefit  the  interests  of  all  His  moral  creation, 
as  by  allowing  the  delay  and  the  seeming  impunity, 
which  give  to  sin,  for  the  time,  its  freer  scope,  and 
allow  it  to  show  more  fully  its  deadly  malignity — or 
as  Paul  phrases  it, — its  exceeding  sinfulness  ?  How 
do  they  know,  but  that  this  slow  evolution  of  His 
purposes,  and  this  long  and  varied  trial  of  man's  in- 
ventions in  religion,  and  of  earth's  substitutes  for 
Heaven, — and  this  incarnation  of  the  Son  to  atone,— 
and  this  descent  of  the  Spirit  to  restore  and  sanctify, 
— may  be  just  the  process  which  gathers  upon  our 
tiny  planet  the  eyes  of  all  orders  and  all  orbs  of  crea- 
tion, and  makes  the  angels  desire  to  look  into  the 
mysteries  of  God's  Church  here,  as  showing  more 
fully  than  anywhere  else  is  shown,  how  just  is  the 
Law,  condemning  sin;  how  vast  the  Love  cancelling 
sin ;  and  how  mad  the  Unbelief  that  spurns  this  love 
and  the  proffered  redemption,  and  clasps  in  preference 
the  sin  thus  denounced,  and  the  menaced  perdition? 
May  not  the  battle-ground,  supplied  by  this  our  earth 
be  that,  where  the  Good  and  Evil  of  a  wide  Universe 
and  of  a  vast  Eternity  find  their  point  of  collision, 
and  settle  onoe  and  settle  forever  their  destinies  ?  And 
though,  to  us,  the  mystery  of  God's  Kingdom  on  earth 
may  seem  drawn  through  many  centuries,  and  sub- 
jected to  needless  and  tedious  reverses,  may  not  the 
stage  be  in  fact  narrow,  compared  with  the  vast  am- 
phitheatre, all  crowded  with  being,  that  eyes  it ;  and 


LECIUREIIT.  57 

may  not  the  lapse  of  time,  in  the  action  of  the  drama, 
and  in  the  arrival  of  the  catastrophe  be  really  brief, 
when  measured  against  the  eternity  whose  moral 
character  it  forever  adjudicates?  Our  world,  and  the 
Church  of  Grod  in  that  world,  may  be  the  lock  and 
bar  with  which  God  shuts  out  Sin  from  its  further 
devastations  of  His  Universe,  and  when  a  God  comes 
down  not  only  to  ransom  our  race,  but,  in  His  own 
stay  here,  and  in  the  career  of  His  earthly  Church,  to 
display  to  all  ages  and  all  ranks,  and  all  hierarchies  of 
His  creatures,  the  true  character  of  His  legislation, 
and  the  true  enormity  of  the  sin  that  would  impugn 
His  laws  and  rights  ; — is  not  the  object  great  enough 
to  deserve  the  cost  of  the  sacrifice  ?  May  not  the 
lock  well  be  intricate,  that  is  to  guard  the  purity  of  a 
universe,  and  to  fix  in  bliss  and  to  secure  in  inviolable 
order,  an  eternity  of  being  ? 

Having  thus  seen,  in  the  first  place,  the  relations 
of  the  kingdom  of  Providence  to  that  of  Grace,  which 
last  is  the  theme  of  the  petition  in  our  text ;  let  us  now 
consider  the  several  aspects  of  that  kingdom.  Let  us 
observe,  then,  that  this,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is, 

I.  Spiritual ; 

n.  It  is  social ; 

HI.  It  is  Eternal. 

These,  three  of  its  aspects,  lead  naturally  to  the 
consideration  of  several  stages  of  its  gradual  develop- 
ment. 

I.  It  is  spiritual.  As  man's  noblest  nature  is  his 
inner,  invisible,  and  spiritual  one,  it  is  to  this  mainly, 
that  God  and  the  religion  of  God  look.     The  Jews 

3* 


68  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

confounded  the  kingdom  of  their  Messiah  with  earthly 
sovereignties  ;  and  would  have  debased  its  privileges, 
and  laws,  and  polity,  to  the  low  and  carnal  level  of  a 
Solomon,  an  Ahab,  a  Herod,  or  an  Augustus.  But 
Christ,  as  we  read  in  Luke's  gospel,  warned  the  Phar- 
isees, the  admired  guides  of  the  nation  in  religion,  that 
they  had  utterly  misreckoned  as  to  the  character  of 
their  expected  sovereign,  and  of  his  long-expected  do- 
Yninion.*  "And  when  he  was  demanded  of  the  Phar- 
isees when  the  kingdom  of  G-od  should  come,  he  an- 
swered them  and  said.  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh 
not  with  observation.  Neither  shall  they  say,  Lo 
here !  or  Lo  there  !  for  behold  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you.''^  Had  our  Saviour,  when  the  Jews,  after 
the  miraculous  muHiplication  of  the  loaves,  would  by 
force  have  taken  him  and  made  him  a  King,  yielded 
to  their  wishes ;  and  had  he  given  to  the  rabble  of 
proselytes  thus  made,  earthly  bread,  and  glory,  and 
victory ;  the  synagogues  would  soon  have  emptied 
their  crowds  into  his  ranks,  and  Scribe  and  Pharisee 
would  have  posted  and  scattered  his  proclamations 
over  Palestine,  and  would  themselves  most  loudly  have 
shouted  Hosanna,  instead  of  rebuking  the  children  who 
did  it  as  he  entered  Jerusalem,  Had  our  Saviour, 
when  He  stood  before  Pilate,  called  down  the  twelve 
legions  of  angels,  that  but  waited  His  bidding  to  dart 
earthward  ;  and  had  Christ  given  to  the  Roman  gov- 
ernor the  lieutenancy  of  these  His  celestial  levies,  and 
the  reversion  of  the  throne  of  the  Caesars ;  the  Roman 
governor  would  boldly  have  avouched  the  innocenoy 
*  Luke  xviL  20,  21 


LECTURE     III.  59 

of  his  prisoner,  not  to  the  Jews  only,  as  he  did,  but  to 
his  Roman  lord  as  well.  But,  if  the  Jews  still  loved 
iniquity  in  their  hearts,  and  remained  the  adulterous 
and  sinful  generation  which  the  Saviour  had  already 
proclaimed  them  to  be  ;  could  they  have  been  really 
happy  in  freedom,  and  worldly  splendor,  and  opulence  ? 
Would  the /*ea/"^  have  been  free?  And  had  Pilate 
still  known  nothing  of  the  grace  of  Grod  in  the  work- 
ings of  his  soul,  that  "  inner  man,"  as  the  Scripture 
entitles  it,  could  all  the  power  and  rank,  which  in- 
vested the  "  outer  man,"  have  made  him  either  better 
or  happier,  than  was  the  foul  and  bloody  Tiberius 
whom  he  would  have  displaced  ?  The  world  are,  in 
our  own  times,  but  beginning  to  learn,  (what  the  Bible 
would  have  told  them  long  centuries  since,)  that  the 
reforms,  and  comforts,  and  emancipations,  which  are 
merely  external  and  bodily,  are  not  satisfying,  and  are 
not  enduring.  Hence  men  see,  that  to  make  a  nation 
capable  of  using  or  of  keeping  freedom,  or  to  render 
self-government  possible,  you  must  not  only  remove 
the  oppressor,  and  bring  the  wheels  of  revolution  over 
the  framework  of  the  government ;  but  you  must,  in 
addition  to  this  external  relief,  apply  an  inner  and 
mental  preparation.  You  must  educate  men  to  pre- 
serve them  from  inventing  and  setting  up  some  new 
oppressor  ;  and  to  keep  them  from  rebuilding  their  old 
and  overthrown  Bastiles,  and  from  restoring  their  dis- 
carded tyrants.  So,  it  is  felt  that  the  richest  gold 
mines,  and  a  fertile  soil,  and  teeming  harvests,  cannot 
give  plenty  to  a  tribe  or  avert  wretchedness  from  a 
bland  and  favored  clime;  except  you  mentally  prepare 


60  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  people,  by  thrift,  and  temperance,  and  self-control, 
to  gather,  and  husband,  and  use  the  abundance  which 
they  receive.  The  outer  goods  of  earth  are  seen  to 
need  the  inner  graces  of  tlie  soul,  in  order  to  sustain 
them  ;  or  they  bring  no  real  relief.  Bind  around  the 
brow  of  Herodias  the  jewelled  diadem  of  the  Imperial 
City  ;  would  that  guilty  head  have  known  true  repose  ? 
Let  the  power  which  took  away  Philip  the  Evangelist 
from  the  side  of  the  Ethiopian  eunuch,  after  his  bap- 
tism, have  snatched  up  the  traitor  apostle  Judas,  just 
as  he  was  meditating  suicide,  and  have  placed  him  as 
Treasurer  of  the  Empire,  in  the  post  where  his  pre- 
dominant covetousness  could  have  full  indulgence  in 
the  care  of  all  that  empire's  wealth  ; — could  all  the 
gold  of  all  the  Candaces  have  assuaged  the  pangs  of  a 
mind  diseased,  and  quelled  the  gnawing  remorse, 
which  he  found  in  his  recollections  of  the  betrayal,  and 
of  Gethsemane,  and  of  Calvary  ? 

Now  the  roots  of  Satan's  tyranny,  of  the  despotism 
of  sin,  and  of  the  misery  of  mankind,  are  in  the  in- 
most soul  of  man.  All  that  does  not  reach  these  roots, 
is  but  a  deceptive,  and  superficial,  and  transitory  re- 
form. Christ  came  to  lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the 
tree, — to  assail  the  strong  man  of  sin  in  the  strong 
hold  of  fhe  human  heart.  To  teach  men  superiority 
to  their  ordinary  and  hereditary  idols,  he  renounced 
for  himself  wealth,  and  fame,  and  rank,  and  science. 
His  dominion  is  spiritual.  The  power  that  is  to 
change  the  face  of  earth,  .and  the  history  of  the  race, 
is  not  an  army, — not  a  fleet, — not  a  treasury  ;  but  a 
WORD  of  salvation, — something  of  the  mind,  and  fof 


LECTURE     III. 


61 


the  mind — and  it  is  a  Spirit  renewing  and  sanctifying 
— the  creative  Spirit  come  down,  to  rear  again  and  re- 
store our  fallen,  created  spirits.  Men's  first  and  fellest 
foes  are  their  own  sins.  These — our  own  fallen  nature, 
and  our  own  evil  propensities  ;  the  world  around  us, 
in  its  evil,  spiritual  influences, — ever  soliciting  and 
contaminating  us ;  and  Satan,  the  unseen,  but  restless 
and  subtle  spirit  of  Temptation  and  Delusion, — these 
are  the  Philistine  and  the  Amalekite,  against  whom 
war  is  to  be  waged,  if  Liberty  is  ever  to  be  more  than 
a  name.  Sin  has  brought  into  the  commonwealth  of 
the  human  soul  utter  anarchy  and  violent  and  grind- 
ing tyranny.  The  conscience  and  the  affections  are 
at  internal  variance.  Passion  rules,  but  conscience, 
down-trodden,  and  drugged,  and  blinded,  protests, 
faintly  and  low,  it  may  be,  but  still  stubbornly  and 
long.  Who  shall  heal  the  anarchy  and  expel  the 
tyranny  ?  Is  the  work  to  be  done  by  outward  observ- 
ances, and  the  merit  of  bodily  services,  and  austeri- 
ties, and  sacraments;  or  by  aught  less  than  the  spirit- 
ual and  the  Divine  ?  No— the  Atoning  Blood  and  the 
Regenerating  Spirit,  these  can,  and  these  only ;  and 
A  is  in  their  train,  that  peace  comes.  "  For,"  as  said 
PauCto  the  Christians  of  Rome,  "  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness,  and  peacs, 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost."*  And  every  view  of  the 
Church  of  Jesus,  or  of  this  kingdom  of  Heaven,  which 
overlooks  this  spiritual  element  in  its  fundamental 
character,  does  the  Kingdom  and  Church  injury;  and 
must  work  an  ultimate  corruption  of  the  Church,  and 
*  Rom.  xiv.  17. 


62  THE     LORD'S     PHAYER. 

an  inevitable  retardation  of  its  progress  and  triumphs. 
Our  being  born  in  a  christian  land,  does  not  make  us 
Christ's  people.  As  an  old  father  in  the  first  ages  of 
the  Church  said,  "  Men  are  not  born  Christians,  they 
arc  made  such."*  So,  the  Protestant  Church  of 
France,  in  our  own  times, — at  least  its  purer  portion; 
— laments  the  worldliness,  and  heresies,  and  scandals, 
brought  into  its  communion  by  a  merely  nominal  and 
hereditary  Protestantism  ;  as  one  of  their  writers  re- 
cently complained, — "  One  is  born  a  Protestant  Chris- 
tian, by  right  divine,  and  instead  of  the  confession  of 
his  faith,  he  presents  his  pedigree."t  So  the  name 
"  Christendom"  misguides  us,  if  we  suppose  that  all 
born  within  certain  territorial  limits,  are,  by  nativity 
and  education,  parcel  of  Christ's  kingdom  and  sub- 
jects. Now,  as  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  great  primal 
agency  in  advancing  and  upholding  the  spiritual  do- 
minion of  Grod  on  earth,  aught  that  grieves  or  repels 
Him, — aught  that  assumes  to  replace  Him  in  His 
prerogatives,  or  claims  to  mortgage  Him  to  a  certain 
ecclesiastical  communion,  or  to  imprison  Him  in  cer- 
tain ordinances,  as  dispensed  by  a  certain  order  of 
men,  and,  above  all,  aught  that  forgets  our  depend- 
ence on  Him,  or  affects  independence  of  Him  and  His 
aids, — is  so  far  a  hindrance  in  the  way  of  the  coming 
of  this  spiritual  empire.  To  enter  ourselves  Christ's 
church,  or  to  aid  others  in  advancing  it,  we  must  be 
born  of  the  Spirit. 

n.  But  we  said  that  the  kingdom  of  G-od  was  not 
only  spiritual,  but  social.    What  is  in  the  man's  heart 

*  Tertullian.  f  Le  Semeur,  13th  Septemb.  1848,  p.  288. 


LECTUREIII.  63 

will  soon  work  its  way  out  upon  the  man's  actions^ 
and  his  associates.  Though  religion  begins  with  the 
individual,  it,  after  having  renovated  the  inner  world 
of  the  heart,  necessarily  affects  the  outer  world,  or  the 
man  in  all  his  relations  to  his  fellow-creatures ;  both 
those  of  like  feelings  with  himself,  or  men  spiritually 
minded,  and  those  also,  who  are  not  yet  in  affinity 
and  sympathy  with  him,  or  as  the  Scripture  calls  this 
last  class,  the  men  who  are  carnally  minded.  If  a  man 
is  a  true  disciple  of  Jesus,  he  is,  or  ought  to  be,  the 
better  man  in  all  his  relations  to  worldly  society,  as  far 
as  those  relations  do  not  assume  to  control  and  over- 
top his  duties  and  relations  to  Heaven.  Peter's  con- 
version to  Christ's  service,  did  not  exempt  him  from 
tribute  to  Csesar,  but  probably  made  him  more  prompt 
and  conscientious  in  the  payment  of  his  dues  to  the 
civil  ruler,  than  the  impenitent  fisherman  of  the 
Galilean  sea  had  been  wont  to  be  in  his  earlier  days  ; 
and  Paul's  change  on  the  way  to  Damascus  made 
him  all  the  more  amiable  and  useful,  as  a  citizen,  a 
friend,  and  a  guest,  and  a  fellow-voyager. 

Religion  is  social.  It  seeks  the  communion  of  the 
saints.  It  forms  the  Church,  and  sustains  its  ordi- 
nances, and  administers  and  abides  its  discipline,  and 
guards  its  purity,  and  seeks  its  increase — the  multi- 
plication of  its  converts  and  the  growth  of  its  holi- 
ness, and  the  augmented  energy  of  its  prayers.  And 
the  Church,  kept  pure  and  spiritual  and  heavenly, 
sheds  through  all  the  social  channels  it  reaches,  new  and 
healing  influences.  It  is  diffusive,  alike  by  its  origin 
and  by  its  destiny.     Come  from  Heaven,  it  has  the  ex- 

3* 


34  THE     lord's     prayer. 

\ 

pansiveness  of  its  birth-place  and  the  wide  charity 
of  its  Divine  Author.  Preparing  its  proselytes  for 
Heaven,  and  claiming  to  win,  one  day,  the  whole  earth 
back  again  to  its  renounced  allegiance, — its  plans, 
its  hopes,  and  its  covenant — all  its  views  of  the 
Future, — make  it  a  vine  shooting  its  branches  over 
the  walls  of  the  family,  and  over  the  enclosures  of 
the  sect,  and  over  the  boundaries  of  the  nation,  till 
the  earth  rejoices  in  its  shadow  and  regales  on  its 
clusters. 

But  though  it  is  to  affect  all  nations,  it  is  rather 
indirectly  than  by  direct  influence.  Tt  is  to  leaven 
the  education,  and  literature,  and  politics,  and  arts,  and 
commerce,  of  the  earth.  But  it  is  not  by  becoming 
itself  a  school  of  philosophy,  or  a  political  power,  or  by 
undertaking  to  engross  the  arts,  or  to  pursue  as  an 
ecclesiastical  corporation  the  trades  or  traffic  of  the 
times.  Its  business  is  with  souls.  But  the  souls 
which  it  reaches  will,  when  once  swayed  by  its  new 
principles,  consecrate  all  their  share  in  the  world's 
concerns  more  or  less  directly  to  the  interests  and 
honor  of  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church.  That  godly 
man  errs  on  the  one  hand,  who  taking  a  Manichean 
view  of  the  world,  as  if  Providence  were  no  longer 
there,  would  fain  go  out  of  the  world,  and  abandon 
all  secular  tasks  and  snap  all  terrene  bonds,  as  if  in 
themselves  unchristian.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
those  divines  and  statesmen  err  quite  as  egregiously, 
and  with  a  more  baleful  effect  on  Truth  and  Holiness, 
who  would  subsidize  the  Church  for  political  purposes, 
and  make  the  Redeemer  of  the  world  and   the  Sove- 


LECTUREIII.  65 

reign  of  the  Universe,  the  stipendiary  of  their  petty- 
principalities.  The  Erastianisni  that  would  subject 
religion  and  the  Church  to  the  civil  magistrate,  vir- 
tually proposes  to  Jesus  a  partnership  in  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven,  which  should  make  the  state  competent 
to  say,  as  it  looked  over  the  Church  :  "  Our  kingdom 
come,  and  our  will  be  done  on  earth  and  in  heaven." 

In  our  country,  we  forswear  religious  establishments. 
And  so  far  we  may  think,  that  we  are  in  no  danger  of 
misconstruing  the  social  character  of  Christ's  church 
and  kingdom.  But  in  our  own  democratic,  as  in  the 
monarchical  governments  of  the  old  world,  there  may 
remain  evils  social  and  political  yet  to  be  remedied. 
Will  the  gospel  reach  these  ;  and  if  so,  how  ?  By  the 
individual  influence  of  Christians  as  citizens,  we  sup- 
pose, rather  than  by  the  Church's  formal  and  organ- 
ized operation,  as  the  Church  ;  and  also  by  the  gradual 
absorption  into  the  mind  of  the  nation,  even  m  the 
case  of  the  unconverted  of  them, — of  some  isolated 
and  single  truths  of  the  Christian  system,  or  by  suf- 
fusing the  national  conscience  with  some  great  evan- 
gelical principles.  We  think,  it  might  be  shown,  that 
nearly  every  step,  in  the  progress  of  European  civiliza- 
tion and  freedom,  has  been  the  taking  up  into  the 
natiiinal  conscience  and  polity,  of  some  singe  truth  of 
the  great  system  of  christian  faith  .and  christian 
ethics.  Chivalry  owed  all  that  it  had  of  good,  its 
honor  and  courtesy,  and  regard  to  the  feelings  and 
rights  of  woman, — all  of  good  it  had, — to  the  princi- 
ples ol  the  gospel.  So  modern  democracy,  in  its  sense 
of  the  equal  rights  of  all,  and  of  the  responsibility  of 


66  THE     lord's     PRAYER. 

governments,  is  but  carrying  out  other  detached  por- 
tions of  christian  truth.  The  Reformation,  was  but 
the  moral  virtue,  streaming  out  of  the  unclasped 
Bible  of  Christianity,  as  that  virtue  began  to  op- 
erate upon  the  habits  and  institutions  of  the  na* 
tions.  Education  and  Commerce  and  Art, — so  far  as 
(hey  keep  themselves  in  a  position  of  due  deference  to 
a  pure  Christianity, — will  elevate  and  bless  society. 
So  far  as  they  shall  rival  or  defy  her,  they  cannot  fail 
to  disappoint  the  hopes  which  they  excite,  and  to  bloat 
the  body  politic  into  a  diseased  appearance  of  prosper- 
ity, the  unsoundness  of  which  any  great  reverse  of 
affairs  will  soon  betray.  Pauperism,  Slavery,  and  the 
question  of  Labor  in  our  times,  can  be  reached  most 
safely  and  effectively,  by  christian  principles  diffused 
throughout  the  community.  The  gospel  is  not  a  mere 
Peasants'  "War,  or  a  servile  insurrection  ;  nor  is  the 
church  a  Phalanstery,  or  a  Political  Constitution,  or 
an  Academy.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  spiritual 
members  of  Christ's  church,  the  '■^twice-born'''  disci- 
ples of  the  Nazarene,  and  of  the  Nazarene's  gospel, 
cannot,  in  their  prior  and  paramount  regard  to  men's 
spiritual  necessities,  therefore,  overlook  or  mock  men's 
physical  and  terrestrial  maladies  and  needs.  Jesus 
taught,  and  thus  benefitted  the  soul ;  but  he  also 
healed  the  blind,  lame,  and  dumb,  and  thus  benefitted 
the  body.  The  gospel  has  its  Brainerds,  and  Careys, 
and  Martyns,  heroes  of  spiritual  labor;  and  it  has  also 
had  its  Howards  and  Frys,  its  heroes  and  heroines  of 
more  secular  toils.  The  kingdom  of  God,  then,  will 
"work  socially,  not  by  usurping  worldly  grvernment, 


LECTURE     III.  67 

Dut  by  influencing  individually  those  who  control  gov- 
ernment. Csesar  must  have  Ctesar's  rights  and  dues, 
whilst  God  has  what  is  God's  ;  as  Christ  solved  the 
problem  when  ensnaringly  presented  to  Him.  And 
the  Church  and  the  ^^tate  will  occupy  positions  and 
relations  that  intp.rloxe  but  do  not  coalesce ;  and  the 
men  of  the  Church  or  the  State  who  plan  their  coa- 
lescence, will  be  seen  to  work  a  mutual  corruption. 
Indeed,  we  believe  that  secular  rulers  are  beginning  to 
feel,  more  and  more,  the  narrowness,  and  material  and 
mortal  and  terrestrial  character  of  their  powers ;  and 
that  it  is  their  consequent  need  to  invoke  the  presence 
and  the  power  of  Christ's  religion,  which  shall  occupy, 
uncontrolled  and  unsalaried,  its  own  higher  and  inde- 
pendent position,  as  the  great  conservative  principle  in 
the  Morals,  and  the  Literature,  and  the  Commerce,  and 
the  Polity  of  Society — "  the  salt  of  the  earth,"  preserv- 
ing and  vitalizing  the  entire  mass. 

III.  But  whilst  this  religion,  beginning  in  the  indi- 
vidual and  spiritual  man,  works  inevitably  its  way 
outward  upon  all  social  relations  and  interests  and 
maladies,  it  is,  unlike  the  government  and  institutions 
of  earth,  eternal.  So  Daniel  described  it,  "  a  domin- 
ion that  shall  never  end."  The  churches  of  earth  are 
but  like  the  receiving-ships  of  a  navy,  from  which  death 
is  daily  drafting  the  instructed  and  adept  recruit,  for  his 
entrance  upon  service  in  the  far  and  peaceful  seas  of 
the  heavenly  world.  Christ  asks  the  heart,  and  the 
homage  of  the  deathless  spirit ;  and,  as  death  moul- 
ders and  disperses,  for  a  time,  the  bodily  tabernacle, 
He  neither  loses  His  rights  in,  nor  His  care  over,  the 


68  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

spirit,  which  that  bodily  tabernacle  for  the  time  housed. 
Now  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  has  already  known,  amid 
seeming  and  local  reverses,  its  stages  of  regular  exten- 
sion and  advancement.  It  has  overspread  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  globe.  The  most  powerful  nations  of  the 
world  are  its  nominal  adherents.  Missions  are  diffus- 
ing it,  on  this  very  Sabbath,  amongst  tribes  whose 
names,  even,  our  fathers  knew  not;  and  in  empires 
which  those  fathers  deemed  hopelessly  barred  against 
the  access  of  our  faith.  Prophecy  assures  us  that  this 
shall  go  on  with  still  augmented  zeal,  and  still  ex- 
panding conquests.  The  Jews  shall  be  brought  in. 
Mohammedanism  shall  fall,  and  is  even  now  evidently 
withering.  Antichrist  shall  be  shattered.  These  are 
stages  in  the  social  development  of  Christ's  blessed 
kingdom.  But,  behind  and  above  them,  come  higher 
developments  in  the  individual  Christian.  The  Resur- 
rection is  to  come,  bringing  back  from  decay  and  obliv- 
ion the  now  mouldered,  but  then  glorified  body.  The 
Redeemer  is  to  reappear  as  the  Judge  of  quick  and 
dead.  The  institutions,  and  generations,  and  kingdoms 
of  earth  are  to  disappear.  The  world  itself,  our  mate- 
rial globe,  is  to  shift  its  robes,  not  as  when  the  deluge 
of  waters  covered  it,  to  become  after  the  change  the 
home  of  an  erring  Noah  and  of  a  mocking  Ham,  and 
of  a  race  running  again  the  old  career  of  apostasy  and 
misery  and  death  ; — but  that  it  may  be  re-clothed,  as 
"  a  New  Heaven  and  a  New  Earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness."  Heaven,  in  its  present  state,  far  as  our 
race  is  concerned,  is  but  a  preparatory  stage  for  that 
greater  and  more  august  scene,  when  Sin  shall  have  lost 


LECTUREIII.  69 

all  further  scope  here,  and  when  Judgment  i^hall  have 
been  instituted  and  meted,  both  individually  and  uni- 
versally and  unalterably.  The  righteous,  here,  have  in 
their  earthly  homes,  but  lodges  in  the  wilderness.  Tho 
most  prosperous  of  earthly  churches  is  but  a  green 
booth,  reared  by  pilgrims  beside  the  fountains  of  Elim, 
and  which  is  soon  to  be  forsaken  in  their  onward 
inarch  beyond  the  line  of  the  present  visible  horizon. 
But,  in  the  heavenly  Canaan,  there  is  a  fixedness  of 
tenure,  and  perpetual  repose,  and  fulness  of  felicity, — 
of  knowledge, — and  of  holiness.  Towards  this  crown- 
ing and  culminating  state  of  the  Redeemer's  Kingdom, 
all  the  earlier  and  inferior  stages  tend.  Zion's  sor- 
rows are  disciplinary  ;  her  reverses  but  school  her  for 
a  more  successful  onset  on  the  powers  and  strongholds 
of  Darkness  ;  and  with  the  destinies  of  her  Redeemer 
embarked  in  her,  and  with  Infallibility  and  Omnipo- 
tence united  in  her  Helmsman,  her  course,  like  His,  is 
"  conquering  and  to  conquer."  Now,  when  the  word 
of  G-od  speaks  of  this  Kingdom,  it  sometimes  alludes 
to  its  incipient,  and  sometimes  to  its  advancing,  and 
sometimes  again  to  its  final  stages.  In  its  spiritual 
and  individual  beginnings  it  is  within  us.  In  its  so- 
cial leaven  reaching  the  tribe,  the  nation,  and  the 
race,  it  is  around  us.  In  its  last  and  triumphant  day, 
it  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  Time  and  Earth.  It  is  beyond 
and  above.  It  has  come  in  splendor  never  to  wane, 
in  power  never  to  be  lessened  ;  and  the  kings  of  the 
earth  bring  their  glory  into  its  gates  never  to  be  closed. 
To  pray,  then,  for  Christ's  Kingdom,  is  to  pray  for 
the  conversion  of   sinners,   and   the    edification    and 


70  THE     lord's     PRAYER. 

sanctification  of  disciples.  It  is  to  ask  the  evangeliza- 
tion of  the  Grentiles  and  the  restoration  of  the  Jews. 
It  is  to  implore  that  Antichrist  may  fall,  and  the  idols 
perish  from  under  the  whole  Heaven.  It  is  to  profess 
sympathy  with  all  that  relieves  and  elevates,  and  en- 
franchises man ;  and  to  implore  the  removal  of  all 
that  corrupts  and  debases  him,  and  that  sells  him, 
soul  and  body,  to  the  service  of  the  Evil  One.  It  is 
the  bannered  motto, — the  rallying  word, — the  battle- 
cry  of  all  who  love  Jesus.  The  souls  of  the  martyrs 
under  God's  altar,  cry  it,  in  substance,  when  they 
say,  "  How  long,  0  Lord  Grod  ?"  The  brute  creation, 
as  it  groans  under  the  bondage  of  vanity,  lifts  to 
Heaven  a  mutely  eloquent  look,  as  it  sighs  to  be  de- 
livered, by  its  true  King,  the  paramount  Lord,  ever  kind 
and  ever  just.  And  did  we,  my  beloved  hearers,  know 
but  aright  the  necessities  of  our  kind,  and  the  truest, 
deepest  wants  of  our  own  souls,  the  hourly  burden  of 
intercession  from  our  acts,  and  plans,  and  alms,  and 
prayers,  would  still  be,  "  Let  thy  kingdom  come.''^ 
It  is  not  the  wish  of  idle  dreamers.  Some  among  the 
noblest  of  earth's  thinkers  have  felt  it.  Hear  the 
blind  bard  of  England,  as  he  cried,  in  prospect  of  the 
moral,  and  social,  and  religious  reformation  of  his 
people.  It  is  the  language  of  one  of  Milton's  prose 
tracts  that  we  quote,  written  in  the  days  of  the  Com- 
monwealth :  "  0,  Thou  the  ever-begotten  Light  and 
perfect  Image  of  the  Father,  intercede !  *  *  *  "Who 
is  there,  that  cannot  trace  thee  now,  in  thy  beamy 
walk  through  the  midst  of  thy  sanctuary,  amidst  thoso 
golden  candlesticks  which  have  long  suffered  a  dim- 


LECTURE     III.  71 

ness  among  us  ?  *  *  *  *  Come,  therefore,  0  Thou 
that  hast  the  seven  stars  in  thy  right  hand,  appoint 
thy  chosen  priests  according  to  their  orders,  and 
courses  of  old,  to  minister  before  Thee,  and  duly  to 
press  and  pour  out  the  consecrated  oil  into  thy  holy 
and  ever-burning  lamps.  *  *  *  And  as  Thou  didst 
dignify  our  fathers'  days  with  many  revelations  above 
all  the  foregoing  ages,  since  thou  tookest  the  flesh  ;  so, 
thou  canst  vouchsafe  to  us  (though  unworthy)  as  large 
a  portion  of  thy  Spirit  as  thou  pleasest ;  for  who  shall 
prejudice  thy  all-governing  will  ?  seeing,  the  power 
of  thy  grace  is  not  passed  away  with  the  primitive 
times,  as  fond  and  faithless  men  imagine,  but  thy 
kingdom  is  now  at  hand,  and  thou  standing  at  the 
door.  Come  forth  out  of  thy  royal  chambers,  0, 
Prince  of  all  the  kings  of  the  earth  I  put  on  the  visi- 
ble robes  of  thy  imperial  majesty,  take  up  that  un- 
limited sceptre  which  thy  Almighty  Father  hath  be- 
queathed thee  ;  for  now  the  voice  of  thy  bride  calls 
Thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be  renewed."* 

Does  this  seem  too  gorgeous  a  hope  ?  Hear  the 
language  of  one  whom  we  suppose  Ood  to  have 
blessed  with  a  yet  sublimer  intellect,  and  who  was 
more  thoroughly  subdued  into  the  penitent  and  lowly 
spirit  of  the  gospel  than  was  Milton.  It  is  Pascal, 
whom  we  would  next  quote.  Borrowing  in  part, 
probably,  his  imagery  from  St.  Augustine,  thus  he 
paints  the  detachment  from  earth  and  the  heavenward 
longings  of  the  Christian  spirit : 

"All  that  is  in  the  world  is  but  the  lust  of  the 

*  Milton's  Prose  "Works,  Lond.  1835,  p.  66. 


72  THE    lord's    praver. 

flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  or  the  pride  of  life.* 
Wretched  is  that  land  of  the  curse,  which  these 
three  rivers  of  fire  traverse,  rather  to  consume  than 
to  irrigate  it.  But  happy  those  who,  though  placed 
beside  these  flaming  streams,  are  not  plunged  be- 
neath them,  and  not  swept  away  by  them ;  but 
who  remain  imrnoveably  fixed.  Not  indeed  proudly 
erect,  but  set  down  on  a  seat  lowly  and  safe,  whence 
they  raise  themselves  not  up  until  the  day  break. 
But  after  having  there  peacefully  reposed,  they  stretch 
out  the  hand  to  Him,  whose  it  is  to  raise  them  up, 
that  He  may  place  them  erect  and  firm  within  the 
gates  of  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem,  where  pride  will 
no  more  assail  and  overthrow  them.  But  who,  in  the 
meanwhile,  weep ; — not  that  they  see  passing  away 
all  these  perishable  objects  swept  onward  by  these 
torrents,  but  as  they  recollect  their  own  beloved  coun- 
try, that  Jerusalem  in  the  heavens  which  they  inces 
santly  remember  throughout  the  long  tediousness  of 
their  exile."t 

Men,  then,  whom  it  would  not  be  easy  to  impeach, 
as  displaying  either  feebleness  of  intellect,  or  poverty 
of  genius,  have  looked  to  this  kingdom  as  the  crown 
of  their  hopes  and  the  sum  of  all  earth's  wants.  Are 
we,  my  hearers,  like  minded?  Or  is  our  interest 
with  the  adverse  power,  whose  possessions  and  enjoy- 
ments, and  fame,  and  pride.  Death  and  the  Judgment 

*  1  John  ii.  16.  Libido  sentiendi,  libido  scicndi,  libido  dominandi— 
(the  lust  of  pleasure,  the  lust  of  knowledge,  ami  the  lust  of  rule.) 

,+  Pensees  de  Pascal,  Renouard"s  ed.,  (Paris,  1812,)  t.  II.  pp.  171,  172. 
Faugere's  ed.,  1. 1,  p.  232. 


L  E  C  T  U  R  E      1 1 1 .  73 

will  soon  and  irrecoverably  smite  ?  Have  we  chosen 
the  sinning,  losing  side,  in  the  great  controversy  that 
agitates  Earth  and  divides  the  Universe  ?  The  King- 
dom of  Grod  OUGHT  to  comc,  and  must  come,  and  as- 
suredly WILL  come.  Shall  its  final  triumphs  only 
bury  our  hopes  and  souls  in  ruin  ?  Shall  the  car  of 
the  conquering  Redeemer  trail  us  defeated  and  cap- 
tive in  the  dust  ?  Shall  Christ  be  by  us  refused  as 
the  Sovereign  and  Saviour,  that  we  may  perforce  con- 
front Him  as  the  Victor  and  Judge,  and  Avenger, 
commanding  those  his  enemies  that  would  not  have 
him  reign  over  them  to  be  slain  ?  Happy  they,  whose 
lips,  and  hearts,  and  lives  maintain,  in  sweet  accord, 
this  as  their  continual ,  petition,  "  Thy  Kingdom 
come ;''''  and  who  take  up,  with  the  full  consent  of 
their  souls,  the  closing  promise  of  the  Bible  and  the 
prayer  which  attends  it,  "  Surely,  I  come  quickly  : 
A.MEN      Even  so,  Come  !  Lord  Jesus  !" 

4 


"  '^!ji|  mill  h  hut  n  uxllj  as  it  13  in  jiFnnru.' 


LECTURE    IV. 

"  €iit{  mill  k  hm  nn  rnrtlj  m  it  is  in  jiPnnBH." 

Matthew,  vi.  10. 

This  petition  is  often  quoted  as  if  it  were  merely  a 
prayer  for  meek  resi^^nation ;  or,  as  though  it  con- 
tained but  an  echo  of  the  sobbings  of  Gethsemane. 
But  whilst  this  is  certainly  included,  the  prayer  seems 
to  comprise  much  more ;  and  to  ask  for  Christian 
energy,  as  well  as  for  Christian  endurance ;  and  for 
diligence  as  much  as  patience.  It  is  not  only  the 
motto  of  that  blessed  Redeemer,  as  He  is  beheld  mute- 
ly S2iffering,  but  also  as  He  is  presented,  incessantly 
and  effectually  laboring.  It  recalls  Him  not  merely 
as  seen  when  undergoing  anguish  and  shame  at  his 
death ;  but  also  as  when,  at  the  well  of  'Samaria,  He, 
though  wearied,  witnesses  faithfully  to  the  truth,  and 
watches  vigilantly  for  souls  ;  or  as,  when  in  earlier 
years,  He  though  yet  but  a  mere  stripling,  confounds 
the  doctors  in  the  temple.  To  his  parents,  in  the  one 
case,  he  spoke  of  being  about  His  Father's  ousiness  ;* 
and  to  his  disciples,  in  the  other  instance,  He  declared 
♦  Luke  il  40. 


78  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

that  it  was  thus,  "  His  meat"  "  to  do  the  will  of  the 
Father  that  sent  Him,  and  to  finish  his  work."*  As 
He  was  himself  the  only  perfect  embodiment  which 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  of  His  own  gospel,  His  own 
acts  become  thus  the  unerring  commentary  upon  His 
precepts^  as  to  prayer,  and  each  other  duty  in  which 
He  placed  Himself  on  the  same  level  and  platform  of 
obligation  with  His  disciples.  The  sentence  of  our  text 
is  then  seen  written  not  merely  over  the  sufferer  upon 
the  cross  of  Grolgotha.  It  is  inscribed  as  well  over  the 
manger  of  the  Infant,  incarnate  at  Bethlehem.  For 
in  the  Incarnation  as  well  as  in  the  Atonement — in 
his  birth  as  much  as  in  his  death, — prophets  and  apos- 
tles represent  our  Lord  as  adopting  virtually  this  lan- 
guage. The  fortieth  Psalm,  as  quoted  and  expounded 
in  the  tenth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
represents  our  Lord  at  his  entrance  upon  his  earthly 
labors,  in  survey  of  his  whole  mortal  career  as  it  lay 
between  the  stable  where  shepherds  found  him  and 
the  sepulchre  where  Joseph  the  Arimathean  laid  him, 
as  saying,  "  Lo  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  0  God  ;"t — 
"A  body  hast  thou  prepared  me  ;"l  or  as  the  Psalmist 
has  it,  "I  DELIGHT  TO  DO  THY  WILL,  0  MY  GoD,  yca,  thy 
law  is  within  my  heart."^  All  Christ's  obedience  in  life, 
as  well  as  his  obedience  unto  death,  is  then  embraced 
in  the  sentiment  and  spirit  of  the  petition  before  us. 
There  would  be  another  incongruity  in  giving  to  the 
present  sentence  merely  the  narrow  construction  of 
resignation  to  suffering ;  it  is  that  angels  and  saints 

*  John  iv.  34.  f  Heb.  x.  9. 

X  Heb.  X.  5.  §  Psalm  xL  8. 


L 


LECTURE     IV.  79 

in  Heaven  could  scarce  be  presented  to  us,  in  the  ?nan- 
ner  in  which  here  they  are,  as  our  patterns.  Patterns 
they  could  not  well  be  of  those  who  are  enduring  evils, 
since  from  all  evil  they  are  now  and  foreverinore  ex- 
empt. But  give  to  the  petition  the  wider  scope  of 
conformity  to  the  Father's  will, — in  action  as  well  as 
in  submission, — let  it  be  the  Lord's  will  done,  as  well 
as  the  Lord's  will  borne, — endeavored  as  well  as  en- 
dured,— and  you  may  readily  see  how  the  glorified 
worshippers  on  high — those  who  continually  and  per- 
fectly and  cheerfully  obey  the  Father's  wishes — may 
well  be  made  models  for  our  imitation,  and  their  zeal 
furnish  a  burning  incentive  to  our  flagging  emulation. 
It  is  the  language  of  adoring  obedience.  Every  vibra- 
tion of  the  seraph's  wing,  and  every  tone  of  the  saint's 
harp,  in  the  world  of  light,  is  each  but  an  act  of  defer- 
ence and  conformity  to  the  Divine  will.  Thus  far, 
then,  the  church  militant  and  the  church  triumphant 
are  in  harmony  with  one  another.  The  Lord's  Prayer 
begins  with  the  acknowledgment  of  G-od's  rights  as 
our  Father.  Then  followed  the  ascription  of  worship  : 
"  Hallowed  be  thy  Name."  Next  came  the  recogni- 
tion of  sovereignty  :  "  Thy  Kingdom  come  ;"  and  now 
succeeds  the  acknowledgment  of  service,  as  due  to  the 
Parent,  the  God,  and  the  King.  This  petition,  then, 
asks  grace  to  obey  G-od's  arrangements  in  His  Provi- 
dence, and  His  appointments  in  His  revelation. 

The  petition  thus  strikes  at  a  two-fold  evil  universally 
dominant  among  our  fallen  race.  The  first  of  these  two 
forms  or  faces  of  transgression  is  self-will,  a  disposi- 
tion to  exalt  our  preferences  and  arrangements  above 


80  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

those  of  our  Maker  and  Ruler.     The  other  of  these  in 
earthly-mincledness,  or  carnality,  a  temper  that  leads 
us,  in  the  apostle's  language,  "  to  measure  ourselves 
among  ourselves,"  and  to  settle  the  extent  of  our  obli- 
gations by  the  practice   and   fashions  of  the  sinners 
around  us,  instead  of  ascending  for  models  and  rules 
to  the  higher  and  unfallen  creatures,  who  have  kept 
their  first  estate.     The  form  of  our  text,  then,  natu 
\A\y  suggests  our  adoption,  in  the  consideration  of  it 
."  a  ""wo-fold  division. 
I.  The  request :  "  2^hi/  will  oe  done  on  earth." 
^*    Tii3  standard  :  "  As  it  is  in  Heaven." 
1.  A^i  wiiat  is  the   will  of  our   Heavenly  Father  . 
As  in  an  ep'nier  discourse  we  have  seen  that  there  wa* 
His  kingdoni  <  "^  Provide:^ce,  a  dominion  already  comi' 
and  established  frA~^  th«^.  l^eglnning  ;  and  His  kingdon 
of  Grace,  a  dorainioc  "Progressive  and  future,  whic}- 
in  its  fulness  was  yet  to  cc-^e,  ai.d  vas  to  be  univer 
sally  established  at  the  end  of  tb^  world  ;  30,  in  "  th^ 
will"   of  our  Great   Parent  and  Sv^ver«ign  on  high, 
there   is   a   two-fold  aspect.     There  arc    deptij.3   and 
heights  in  His  will  yet  but  very  partially  kn:^wn.     It 
is  His  will  of  control, — that  sovereign  and  all-govern- 
ing purpose,  which  foresees  and  uses  all  occurrences 
and  all  influences,  and  all  resistances  even, — providing 
for  the  eruptions  and  the  avalanches  of  our  revolt,  and 
of  our  sinful  disregard  of  Him,  and  of  our  league  with 
Hell,  and  weaving  even  these  into  His  wide  plans. 
Much  of  this  controlling  and  overruling  Will  is  among 
those  "  secret  things"  which,  as  Moses  declared,  be- 
long only  to  the  Lord,  whilst  the  "  things  revealed" 


LECTUREIV.  81 

belong  more  properly  to  us  and  to  our  children.  The 
great  outlines  and  last  results  of  this  controlling  and 
sovereign  purpose  He  has  made  known ;  but  its  de- 
tails and  many  of  its  relations  are  as  yet  inscrutable 
to  our  limited  faculties.  But  there  is  another  aspect 
of  his  will.  It  is  His  will  of  command  ;  what  He  re- 
quires of  us,  and  what  He  disapproves  in  us.  This 
He  makes  known  by  the  voice  of  reason  and  conscience 
in  part,  but  more  perfectly  in  the  book  of  His  scrip- 
tures, and  by  the  influences  of  His  Spirit.  And  as 
men,  to  make  sure  the  execution  of  their  will  and 
choice,  record  them  in  covenants  and  testaments,  so 
He,  to  bring  nearer  and  make  more  impressive  and 
obligatory,  and  venerable  in  our  eyes  His  will,  pro- 
claimed it  in  covenants,  and  ratified  it  in  that  New 
Testament  which  was  published  in  the  incarnation, 
and  sealed  with  the  blood  of  Grod  the  Son.  The  cove- 
nants of  both  dispensations  were  attested  by  sacrifices. 
In  the  old  these  were  typical ;  in  the  new,  was  mani- 
fested the  one  real  and  availing  oblation  of  that  Lamb 
slain  in  the  Divine  purposes  before  the  foundation  of 
the  world.  With  Abraham  of  old  G-od  entered  into 
covenant  by  passing,  as  a  flaming  fire,  between  tho 
dissevered  pieces  of  a  slaughtered  victim.  Now,  no 
more  figuratively  but  really^  through  the  rent  veil 
and  sundered  flesh  of  a  Redeemer's  body,  God  calls 
His  saints  to  make  with  Him  a  covenant  by  sacrifice, 
and  to  find  attested  in  the  same  dread  transaction  the 
Last  Will  of  a  redeeming  Brother,  whose  legacies  and 
heritage  come  to  us  as  from  out  his  tomb,  and  who 
enriches  and  re-establishes  us  by  his  death.     We  are 

4* 


82  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  juniors  and  prodigals,  whom  the  Elder  Brother 
above,  in  no  exclusive  spirit  like  him  of  the  parable, 
but  in  self-sacrificing  generosity,  has  reconciled  to  the 
Father,  and  reinstated  in  the  home, — rehabilitated 
and  ransomed  by  his  own  atoning  oblation.  And  if, 
my  beloved  hearers,  it  be  an  ungracious  act,  on  the 
part  of  a  favored  and  indulged  child,  and  of  a  legatee, 
profusely  endowed  by  the  generosity  of  a  departed 
kinsman,  to  contest  and  impeach  the  will  of  that  lib- 
eral parent  or  kinsman,  by  imputing  imbecility  or  in- 
sanity to  the  mind  that  framed  this  testament,  it  is  no 
light  sin,  and  it  shall  have  meted  to  it  no  light  recom- 
pense of  vengeance,  if  we  endeavor,  in  our  infidel 
temerity,  to  set  aside  the  Will  and  Testament  of  our 
Grod,  impeaching  our  Redeemer  of  cruelty,  and  im- 
puting to  the  Omniscient  and  Unerring  a  want  of 
wisdom  or  a  lack  of  truth ;  and  claiming  Earth  and 
Heaven,  not  as  the  legacy  of  His  grace,  but  as  the 
purchase  and  due  of  our  own  merit. 

God's  will  of  control,  we  said,  was  but  partially 
known,  as  compared  with  His  will  of  command.  The 
last,  which  is  the  better  known,  is  therefore  the  chief 
guide  of  our  actions.  By  God's  controlling  will,  we 
intend  His  pledged  and  unalterable  purpose  to  over- 
rule all  events  and  all  agencies, — the  revolt  of  earth 
and  the  machinations  of  Hell  even — to  the  final  estab- 
lishment of  His  own  decrees,  and  the  universal  exten- 
sion of  His  own  dominion.  We  see  in  human  beings, 
even  the  just  and  the  wise  of  the  race,  the  same  dis- 
tinction between  their  will  of  control,  and  their  will 
cf  command  or  counsel.     Take,  for  instance,  the  illiis- 


LECTURE     IV.  83 

trious  Howard  the  missionary  and  martyr,  of  benevo- 
lence to  the  imprisoned  and  forsaken.  This  good  man 
had  devised,  from  his  experience  and  observation,  cer. 
tain  rules  for  the  better  construction  and  governance 
of  prisons.  Now,  if  his  will  of  counsel  or  command^ 
so  to  speak,  (his  precepts  of  wisdom  and  kindness,) 
had  been  heeded  by  evil-doers,  they  would  not  be  the 
inmates  of  prisons  ;  and  the  other  portion  of  Howard's 
studies,  his  law  of  control,  would  be  no  longer  needed. 
But  if  men,  in  the  abuse  of  their  freedom,  did  wrong, 
then  in  his  controlling  will, — his  disposition  to  bring 
out  of  the  case  as  it  stood,  not  as  he  had  wished  it, 
but  as  they  had  made  it,  the  most  good  to  society  and 
to  the  transgressor  himself, — he  had  his  prisons  pre- 
pared and  arranged  for  the  detention  and  restraint  of 
the  evil-doer.  So  too,  a  civil  government,  upright  and 
equitable,  whose  just  laws  are  threatened  with  resist- 
ance by  a  portion  or  by  an  entire  province  of  its  subjects, 
may  by  its  will  of  counsel  or  command,  urge  sincerely 
and  kindly,  the  men  of  the  province  to  abide  the  civil 
law  ;  but  if  they  scorn  the  milder  legislation,  it  may 
in  its  will  of  control,  proclaim,  and  that  j  astly  and  in- 
evitably, martial  law  for  the  repression  of  the  revolt, 
and  for  the  avengement  of  its  own  dishonored  and  im- 
perilled authority.  Now  sin  is  an  anomaly  in  Grod's 
dominions.  He,  allowing  to  His  creatures  in  the 
angelic  and  human  races,  the  exercise  of  freedom,  may 
have  permitted  sin  to  occur,  whilst  His  will  of  com- 
mand or  legislation,  sincerely  and  strictly  condemns 
it ;  but  he  so  permits  it  only  because  in  His  will  of 
control,  He  wil'   ultimately  restrain  its  ravages,  and 


84  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

make  its  wrath  to  praise  Him.  His  precepts,  then, 
are  one  thing  ;  His  decrees,  in  the  event  of  our  reject- 
ing the  precepts,  another  thing.  Of  these  His  decrees, 
prescient  and  all-embracing,  we  have  in  His  word  bat 
the  dim,  vast  outline,  traced  out  to  us.  We  know 
that  they  include  all  times,  all  actions,  and  all  beings. 
He  saw  when  it  was  yet  but  shooting  along  the  reedy 
banks  of  the  Nile,  the  future  application  and  the  use 
to  be  made  of  each  twig,  out  of  which  the  mother  of 
Moses  wove  the  basket-ark  in  which  her  child  was 
committed  to  the  waters  of  the  river.  When  Jehovah 
framed  the  everlasting  mountains  in  the  first  week  of 
creation.  He  saw  in  all  its  destinies  each  fragment  of 
earth  or  stone  which,  centuries  afterwards,  the  Jews 
were  to  take  up,  that  they  might  cast  them  at  Jesus, 
or  which  were  to  be  employed  in  the  attempted  mur- 
der of  Paul  at  Lystra,  or  the  accomplished  murder  of 
Stephen  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  though  he  might  have 
hindered,  God  saw  it  not  meet  to  hinder,  this  wicked 
misuse  of  this  His  handiwork.  His  eye  saw,  when  it 
was  yet  in  the  ore  and  the  unbroken  veins  of  the  mine, 
the  silver, — each  particle  of  it, — that  was  to  be  em- 
ployed in  coining  the  thirty  pieces  of  money  that  were, 
in  the  hands  of  the  chief  priests,  to  buy  the  fideHty  of 
Judas,  and  to  bargain  for  the  life  of  our  Saviour,  and 
to  secure  at  last  the  field  of  Aceldama.  When  it  was 
yet  but  a  seedling,  he  foreknew  all  the  dread  history 
of  the  tree  that  was  to  furnish  our  Redeemer's  cross, 
and  might  have  forbidden  the  dew  to  nourish  or  the 
soil  to  sustain  it.  With  the  treason  and  the  Deicide 
he  had   no  collusion  ;  and  yet,  in  His  will  of  control^ 


LECTUREIV.  S5 

He  witnessed,  permitted,  and  overruled  all  the  steps 
uf  the  wickedness  that  produced  this  dread  consumma- 
tion. 

Hence  it  was  said  by  an  apostle,  of  that  same  event, 
the  death  of  our  Lord,  that  it  was  by  the  determinate 
counsel  and  for eknoiol edge  of  God,  and  yet  that  the 
Jews  did  it  by  wicked  hands.  In  Ood's  will  of  com- 
mand, it  was  a  crime  forbidden  solemnly  and  plainly, 
and  the  Jews  doing  it  against  conscience  and  Scrip 
ture,  and  the  strivings  of  the  Spirit,  did  it  by  wicked 
hands ;  and  it  was  the  very  sum  and  concentration  of 
all  wickedness,  the  world's  greatest  crime.  In  Grod's 
wonder-working  wisdom  and  kindness,  however,  his 
will  of  control  brought  good  out  of  the  unexampled  evil, 
and  the  same  event  which  on  one  side  was  the  world's 
greatest  crime,  became  on  the  other  side,  and  in  G-od's 
sovereign  use  of  it,  the  world's  greatest  boon.  But  as 
Grod's  controlling  will  is  not  our  guide,  and  is  not  fully 
revealed  to  us  for  such  purposes,  but  only  God's  will 
of  command,  which  is  more  fully  manifested,  the  Jews 
with  open  eyes  infringing  the  last — all  of  them,  Caia- 
phas  and  Herod,  and  all  their  confederates — were  in- 
excusable. You  may  say,  "  Who  hath  resisted  His 
will?" — His  will  of  control?  But  Paul  has  antici- 
pated the  cavil ;  and  his  reply  is  the  sufficient  one : 
"  Nay  but  0  man,  who  art  teiou  that  repliest  against 
God  ?"*  With  all  thy  obligations  to  God,  and  all 
thy  illumination  from  Him,  and  all  thy  inferiority 
before  Him,  "who  art  thou,"  and  what  right  hast 
thou  to  cross  the  plain  path  of  Duty,  and  then  to 
*  Rom.  ix.  19,  20. 


85  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

plead  that  He  will  make  it  up,  through  the  interpola- 
tion of  thy  sin,  into  the  mysterious  plan  of  Destiny  ? 
Who  authorized  thee  to  break  the  fragile  fence  of  the 
command,  and  then  defend  thyself  by  pleading  that 
thou  hast  nut  broken  the  iron  rod,  the  infrangible  scep- 
tre of  Providence  and  Predestination  ?  Thou  hast  not 
shivered  this  last, — not  because  thou  wouldest  not,  but 
because  thou  couldest  not.  The  law  of  command  that 
was  in  thy  grasp  thou  hast  trampled  under  foot.  The 
law  of  all-ruling  control  thou  hast  not  trodden  down, 
because  it  was  so  high  thou  couldest  not  clamber  to 
reach  it.  What  thou  couldest  do  against  Him,  thou 
didst,  and  thou  must  be  punished,  because  it  shows 
how  much  more  thou  fain  ivouldest  do,  if  thou  hadst 
but  opportunity  and  scope.  To  leave,  then,  room  and 
range  for  the  exhibition  of  man's  real  character,  for 
the  evolving  of  the  blossom  and  the  full  blown  flower 
of  his  depraved  heart, — to  allow  verge  and  margin 
enough  for  the  existence  of  a  world  of  probation,  and 
for  the  manifestation  of  Satan's  nature  and  will,  and 
for  the  true  fruits  of  the  Tempter's  infernal  counsels, — 
VGrod  gives  but  the  will  of  His  command  to  be  fully 
known;  and  keeps  as  yet  in  reserve  and  comparative 
darkness  the  will  of  His  control  ;j]\XBi  as  a  Legislator, 
having  given  his  subjects,  ere  their  revolt,  just  and 
full  statements  as  to  his  statutes,  is  not  bound,  if  they 
spurn  these,  to  add  a  full  and  minute  plan  of  His  cam- 
paigns, when,  as  the  Avenger,  he  comes  forth  to  pun- 
ish them  for  the  infringement  of  those  statutes.  It  is 
enough  for  justice,  that  the  sinner  should  know  that 
his  transgression,   persisted  in    and   remaining  unre- 


L  E  C  T  U  R  E     I  V.  87 

pented  of,  will  be  assuredly  and  eternally  visited.  But 
the  ivhen,  and  the  where,  and  the  how,  Grod  will  come 
down  in  anger  to  end  his  probation  and  to  begin  hi«t 
torment,  he  is  not  told,  nor  has  he  any  right  to  require 
that  he  should  be  told.  He  is  assured  that,  in  the 
Omniscience  and  Omnipresence,  and  Omnipotence  of 
his  outraged  Sovereign  and  Benefactor,  even  his  rebel- 
lion can  be  overruled  for  the  glory  of  the  Throne  it  as- 
sails ;  but  it  lessens  not  by  a  single  shade  the  black- 
ness of  his  ingratitude,  nor  abates  in  the  least  from  the 
greatness  of  his  mad  temerity. 

2.  And  now,  with  these  explanations  as  to  the  will 
of  our  Father  in  Heaven,  we  see  the  wide  comprehen- 
siveness of  the  petition,  when  we  ask  that  the  will  or 
command  of  our  Heavenly  Parent  may  be  known — for 
to  be  done  or  obeyed,  it  must  first  be  known  or  mani- 
fested. In  offering  this  request,  we  then,  by  necessary 
implication,  ask  that  we  may  have  grace  earnestly  and 
honestly  to  inquire,  in  all  the  channels  through  which 
it  is  to  come  to  us,  AVhat  His  wishes  are,  and  what 
He  would  have  us  His  children  do  ?  So  did  Paul  in 
the  first  agony  of  his  conversion.  "  Lord,  what  would- 
est  thou  have  me  to  do?"  Conscience  then  will  be 
cherished,  and  kept  not  as  a  tarnished  but  as  a  bur- 
nished mirror,  that  it  may  more  clearly  reflect  the  light 
and  images  cast  upon  it.  Scripture  will  be  pondered, 
habitually  and  prayerfully  and  practically.  And  as 
none  of  these  petitions  are  isolated  and  selfish,  but 
grasp  our  brother's  needs  as  well  as  our  own — to  pray 
that  G-od's  will  may  be  known,  is  virtually  to  implore 
that  the  two  Testaments  of  Revelation,  the  Old  pro- 


88  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

claimed  by  the  prophets  of  the  Saviour,  anJ  the  New 
by  the  apostles  of  the  Saviour,  may  be  diffused  abroad. 
It  is  to  pledge  ourselves  at  the  mercy-seat,  that  the 
prayers  we  offer  shall  be  accompanied  by  plans  and 
alms,  and  efforts  for  the  translation  and  dispersion  of 
these  Scriptm-es  among  the  whole  brotherhood  of  our 
race 

If  is,  again,  a  prayer  explicitly  that  the  will,  being 
once  and  in  any  way, — by  reading  or  hearing,  by  con- 
science or  Scripture,  or  by  the  ministrations  of  the 
nursery,  of  the  Sabbath-school  or  the  pulpit, — made 
known,  it  may  be  done  by  us.  It  is  thus  a  prayer, 
that  G-od  would  give  us  the  grace  of  obedience  in  ac- 
tion, that  our  lives  and  words  and  thoughts  may  prac- 
tically carry  out  His  law  and  exemplify  His  gospel. 
And  yet,  how  far  is  this  from  being  the  aspect  of  the 
world.  Each  forgetting  that  the  will  of  our  Maker  is 
from  the  moment  of  creation  necessarily  and  inevitably 
the  law  of  our  happiness  and  usefulness, — we  are  sett- 
ing up  instead  of  this  our  own  wills, — selfish — and  vari- 
able— and  evil — and  ruinous.  With  no  one  paramount 
law  amongst  us,  when  we  have  once  swerved  from  the 
One  wise  and  good  and  harmonious  Will  of  our  Maker, 
the  whole  scene  of  human  history  presents  but  a  con- 
flict of  clashing  wills,  a  hurtling  together  of  surcharged 
thunder  clouds.  Each  would  have  his  wishes  law  to 
his  neighbor,  and  would  thrust  his  own  interests  and 
tastes  above  those  of  all  dependent  upon  him.  Hence, 
discord,  and  tyranny,  and  murderous  hate  ;  and  hence, 
as  James  argues,  "  wars  and  fightings  among  you." 
When  ""-he  apostle  was  on  his  voyage  to  Rome,  the  vessel 


LECTURE     IV,  SS 

in  which  he  was  embarked  fell  "  into  a  place  where 
tM'o  seas  met,"  and  "  the  hinder  part  was  broken  by 
the  violence  of  the  waves."*  Look  off  upon  the  trou- 
bled waters  of  society ;  and  why  the  violence  of  the 
world,  and  whence  its  wrecks,  but  because  the  ever- 
varying  and  mutually  opposing  currents  of  selfish  in- 
fluences make  here,  as  Paul  found  in  the  Adriatic, 
"  cross  seas  ?"  And  remember,  again,  the  inveterate 
subtlety  of  some  wily  and  mighty  men,  compelling 
others  to  subserve  their  iron  and  remorseless  will. 
And  remember  the  keener  cunning  and  fiercer  wrath 
of  him  who  has  been  a  murderer  of  man  from  the  be- 
ginning. See  him  leading  men  by  his  arts  "  captive 
at  his  loill ;''''  and  knowing,  as  from  Grod's  word  you 
do,  the  settled  contrariety  of  that  demon  will  to  holi- 
ness, to  happiness,  and  to  Heaven,  do  you  not  see  how 
human  tyranny  and  Satanic,  flinging  up  as  they  do 
their  maddened  billows  ever  against  the  course  and 
current  of  obedience  to  the  Divine  will,  you  need  skil- 
ful pilotage,  and  a  true  compass,  keenly  eyed,  and  a 
helm  vigorously  grasped,  if  you  would  ride  these  coun- 
ter currents,  and  "  do  the  will  of  your  Father  in 
Heaven,''''  and  plough  with  upright  keel  your  steady 
path  to  the  port  of  rest  ?  Yes,  nature  must  be  re- 
newed within  you,  to  obey.  Grod  must  be  implored 
by  His  Spirit  "  to  v^ork''^  in  you  "  both  to  will  and  to 
do."  And  do  you  not  see  why  the  apostle  prayed  for 
the  Colossi ans  ceaselessly,  "  that  they  might  be  filled 
with  the  knoivledge  of  God''s  will;"!  and  why  Epa- 
phras  their  minister  is  represented,  in  the  same  epis' 

*  Acts  xxvii.  4L  f  Col.  i.  9. 


90  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

tie,  as  making  his  fervent  and  laborious  intercession, 
that  they  might  "  be  complete  in  all  the  will  of 
God."* 

3,  But  though  obedience  in  action  be  required,  it  is 
not  the  sole  meaning  of  the  petition.  Obedience 
must  be  shown  in  suffering'  as  well  as  in  toiling 
And  the  obedience  of  suffering  submits  itself  not  only 
to  the  Will  of  G-od's  command,  as  I'equiring  us  to  en- 
counter all  sacrifices  of  reputation  and  interest  and 
ease,  that  obedience  to  his  precepts  may  occasion  us ; 
but  it  sabjects  itself  also,  to  the  Will  of  Q-od's  con- 
trol, to  His  Sovereign  and  inscrutable  Providence, 
which  orders  all  events  and  overrules  even  the  wicked- 
ness and  wrath  of  man  and  of  devils,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  its  own  wise  purposes.  Man's  wrongs 
against  us,  the  tongue  of  Shimei,  and  the  rumor  of 
Gashmu,  and  the  plot  of  Ahithophel,  may  thus  be 
felt  in  their  true  character,  and  may,  within  proper 
limits,  be  resisted  as  wrongs  against  us;  and  yet, 
beyond  and  above  these  limits,  we  may,  with  the 
Psalmist  of  old,  look  on  the  wicked  as  but  the  sword 
whom  Grod  wields,  or  as  the  prophet  represents  the 
Assyrian  oppressor  of  Israel,  a  staff  and  an  axe  which 
the  Most  High  lifts  up  and  brings  down — shaped  for 
His  purposes  and  only  laid  aside  when  He  pleases. 
As  the  imperfect  and  erring,  we  need  chastisement ; 
as  the  inhabitants  of  a  scene  of  allurement,  we  need 
restraint  and  discipline.  Hence,  God  sends  affliction; 
and  whom  he  loveth,  he  chasteneth,  although  He  does 
not  willingl'  grieve  the  children  of  men.     Thus, 

*  Col.  iv.  12. 


LECTURE     IV.  91 

"  He  ■who  knew  wlmt  human  hearts  would  prove, 
How  slow  to  leara  the  dictates  of  His  love, 
Called  for  a  cloud  to  darken  all  their  years, 
And  said,  '  Go  spend  them  in  the  vale  of  tears.'"* 

A.n(l  thus  regarded,  how  to  the  experienced  disciple 
does  the  overruling,  though  untraceable,  will  of  His 
Father  on  High,  become  a  theme  of  most  exquisite 
delightfulness.  He  sees  the  most  trivial  incidents 
entering  into  the  counsels  of  G-od's  all-grasping  gov- 
ernment. Is  Kish  to  have  his  son  made  king  of 
Israel  ?  The  straying  of  his  beasts,  because  they 
found  the  fence  low  or  saw  the  herbage  beyond  it 
greener — the  roving  fancy  of  a  brute  herd — brings  the 
youth  to  the  prophet  who  is  to  crown  him.  The 
woman  of  Samaria  needs,  as  is  her  daily  wont,  to  fill 
the  urn  at  the  well,  and  her  unconscious  errand  is  to 
meet  in  that  memorable  day.  Salvation,  incarnate  in 
that  Messiah,  whom  the  world  had  for  centuries  been 
expecting.  Zaccheus  climbs  the  tree  from  curiosity  ; 
the  blind  man  sat  by  the  wayside  to  intercept  the 
passing  traveller's  gift;  the  lame  man  is  borne  to  the 
Gate  Beautiful  of  the  Temple,  to  win  by  the  old 
spectacle  of  his  distress  the  daily  pittance  of  alms  ; 
and  for  all  these,  the  gospel  is  waiting,  thus,  to  meet 
and  bless  them  eternally.  Nothing  is  petty  in  G-od's 
government.  So  too,  how  strange  the  chemistry  of 
Heaven  that,  from  evil,  extracts  its  own  good  and 
blessed  ends.  How  many  and  long-cherished,  and 
murderous,  must  have  been  the  grudgings  of  Joseph's 

*  Cowper's  Epistle  to  an   Afflicted   Lady  in  France. — Grh  ishaw't 
Cvinper,  vol.  vii.  p.  34. 


92  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

brethren  against  the  lad  with  the  coat  of  many  colors  j 
but  all  their  unbrotherly  plot,  and  Reuben's  lie,  and 
the  Midianites'  covetousness, — all  are  to  prepare  for  the 
feeding  of  Jacob  and  his  household  in  famine,  and  to 
make  way  for  the  wonders  of  the  liberation  of  the 
nation  of  Israel  from  the  house  of  bondage.  Look  at 
Pharaoh's  obduracy  and  unblushing  falsehood,  as  mir- 
acle after  miracle  wrests  a  fresh  and  larger  promise 
from  him  in  favor  of  the  chosen  tribes,  to  be  afresh 
forfeited  and  falsified.  How  daring  his  defiance  of 
Jehovah,  but  Jehovah  "  sees  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning ;"  and  all  this  impenitence,  so  tantalizing  and 
exasperating  to  the  Hebrews,  is  but  the  foreground  of 
the  picture  in  whose  dim  distance  are  seen  Egypt  and 
her  gods  confounded,  the  Red  Sea  cleft,  the  fiery  pil- 
lar, and  the  thundering  Sinai,  and  the  subdued  and 
apportioned  Canaan.  Look  at  Goliath,  and  Saul,  and 
Doeg,  and  Absalom,  and  Shimei — all  mad  against 
David's  life  ;  but  all  tributary  to  his  best  interests. 
See,  in  the  later  times,  the  school  of  Gamaliel  and 
the  massacre  of  Stephen,  and  the  letters  of  the  High 
Priest, — all  fitting  Saul  of  Tarsus  to  be  a  relentless 
persecutor,  a  ravening  wolf  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, 
as  successful  as  he  is  savage  in  his  quest  of  the  lambs 
of  Christ's  sheepfold. — No, — man  and  Satan  so  meant 
it.  But  God  otherwise  disposed  what  man  and  fiend 
proposed.  His  Rabbinic  learning  is  to  write  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  His  zeal  in  persecution  is  to 
seal  the  genuineness  of  his  conversion,  and  to  guard 
his  humility.  And  when  he  becomes,  by  that  won- 
drous counsel  of  grace,  an  apostle  of  the  faith  he  had 


LECTUREIV.  93 

once  liarried  to  the  death,  see  the  forty  Jews  banded 
with  an  oath  that  they  would  not  touch  food  till  he 
was  slain.  How  atrocious  their  sin,  and  how  inevi- 
table seems  his  fate  ;  but  no — God  intends  to  use  these 
infuriated  Jews  and  their  conspiracy,  as  a  part  of  the 
blessed  counsel  and  scheme  of  Heaven  to  waft  his 
servant  to  Rome,  there  to  reach  and  evangelize  the 
household  of  Caesar,  among  whom  Paul  is  to  find 
trophies  of  the  Cross  under  the  very  shadow  of  the 
imperial  throne.  The  tempest  of  Jewish  hate  is  a 
blast  of  life — a  rushing  gale  of  Heavenly  influence 
to  the  Roman  court  and  capital.  Are  you  then 
bereaved,  impoverished,  persecuted,  betrayed,  and 
wronged  ?  See  the  examples  of  submissive  acquies- 
cence set  before  you  in  the  Scripture.  We  need  scarce 
remind  you  of  Aaron  holding  his  peace  when  his  sons 
were  slain  in  their  sins, — and  Job,  impoverished  and 
stript,  and  taunted, — and  Moses,  insulted  and  refused 
by  the  thankless  race  he  came  to  emancipate, — and 
Eli,  bereaved  of  children  who  died  as  the  fool  dieth, 
— and  David,  threatened  with  a  clinging  household- 
curse, — and  Hezekiah,  told  of  approaching  captivity, 
— but  all  yielding  themselves  meekly  to  the  afflic- 
tive will  of  their  God.  Hear  Stephen  praying  for 
his  murderers,  amid  the  showered  stones  that  fall 
and  bruise  him;  and  Christ  spending  his  last  breath 
in  intercession  for  his  mockers  and  slaughterers  ;  how 
do  they  teach  us  submission  to  God's  appointments, 
and  to  his  sovereign  control,  as  able  to  neutralize  and 
counteract  even  the  most  wicked  actions  of  the  most 
wicked  of  beings. 


94  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

11.  But,  surely,  all  this  love  of  obedience  in  action 
and  obedience  in  sufferings,  this  quiet  trust  in  God's 
commanding  and  revealed  ivill,  and  this  meek  resig- 
nation to  G-od's  mysterious  and  controlling'  will,  yet 
but  dimly  revealed,  are  not  learned,  easily  and  best,  on 
earth.  No.  It  is  above,  that  we  find  our  true  stand- 
ard. The  child,  as  the  bark  wafts  it  away,  thinks 
that  the  shore  rather  than  the  ship  is  moving.  The  old 
astronomy  supposed  our  globe  stationary,  and  the  sun 
revolving  around  it.  But  further  knowledge  shows 
the  chikl,  that  it  is  the  ship,  not  the  steadfast  land  that 
is  changing  place  ;  and  the  astronomer  demonstrates, 
that  it  is  our  globe  which  is  shifting  from  moment  to 
moment  its  position  in  the  sky,  and  swimming  its 
swift  way  through  fields  of  ether.  Now,  in  morals 
men  are  like  children,  finding  their  fixed  and  station 
ary  point,  where  it  really  is  not.  They  think  earth  to 
be  the  standard,  but  it  is  in  fact  Heaven  that  should 
be  so.  Man  instinctively  looks  toward  a  life  beyond 
the  grave,  and  catches  at  the  intimations,  more  or  less 
clear,  which  he  has  of  a  Heaven.  But  the  heart,  left 
unregenerate,  is  prone  by  its  fallen  nature,  to  make 
that  Paradise  in  the  likeness  of  our  sinful  earth,  in- 
stead of  endeavoring  to  renew  our  sinful  Earth  into 
the  likeness  of  an  unfallen  and  celestial  Paradise.  So 
the  Pagan — so  the  Mohammedan — so  the  Swedenbor- 
gian, — all  invest  their  imaginary  heavens  with  the  im- 
perfection and  sins  of  this  sinning  world  of  ours  ;^ 
projecting  the  carnality  and  worldliness  of  this  dark 
and  evil  earth  into  the  land  of  holiness,  and  light,  and 
bliss      AVhen  to  John,  the  last  surviving  apostle,  in 


LECTUREIV.  95 

the  isle  of  Patmos,  the  veil  of  the  eterna  world  is  up- 
lifted, look  in.  Are  they  the  Elysian  fields  of  Pagan 
bards,  where  Mercury  thieves  and  Jupiter  quarrels  ? 
Are  these  the  Houris  of  the  Arabian  impostor,  that  flit 
before  the  gaze  ?  Are  they  the  cities,  and  trades,  and 
domestic  bickerings,  and  theological  debates  of  the 
frenzied  Swede,  that  are  displayed  ?  The  gospel  does 
with  the  moral  heavens  what  science  has  already  done 
with  the  physical.  Tt  reverses  this  process  of  earth. 
It  makes  the  other  world  the  fixed  point — the  stand- 
ard— and  this  the  moveable  point,  needing  revolution 
and  change  to  bring  it  out  of  its  present  disastrous 
eclipse.  The  better  and  more  blessed  orb  is  made  the 
model  of  imitation  and  emulation  to  the  more  wretched 
and  the  more  wicked  one.  As  do  angels  and  just  men 
on  high  our  Father's  will,  so  should  we,  on  earth, 
strive  to  know,  and  knowing  to  obey  it.  There  is  in 
human  nature  a  tendency  to  idolatry  of  higher  na- 
tures, that  manifested  itself  early  in  the  christian 
church,  in  a  worship  of  these  angels  thus  set  before 
us.  It  is  but  "  will- worship,"  as  Paul  calls  it,  or  a 
deification  of  idols  which  our  own  selfish  and  wayward 
"  wilV^  has  installed  or  invented.  Loyola,  fired  by 
the  perusal,  in  his  slow  convalescence,  of  the  Lives  of 
the  Saints,  as  he  might  have  been  by  the  romances 
of  chivalry,  is  but  a  development  of  the  principle  of 
idolizing  emulation  that  glows  in  us  all.  But  the 
Scripture  teaches  us  not  the  worship  of  saints  departed, 
and  angels.  It  bids  us,  in  memory  and  imagination, 
consort  with  these  last,  as  already  our  attendants  and 
ministers,  and  as  soon  to  be  our  eternal  companions ; 


96  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

but  it  reminds  us,  that  like  vis,  their  duty  and  theii 
delight  is  obedience  to  our  common  Father  and  Lord. 
They  are  our  "  fellow-servants."  They  aslc  our  sym- 
pathy and  co-operation  ;  but  they  loathe  and  abjure 
our  allegiance  and  adoration,  if  transferred  from  their 
God  to  themselves.  Their  service  should  instruct  and 
moald  ours,  into  the  resemblance  of  its  cheerfulness  and 
promptitude.  They  are  swift  to  assume  the  tasks  en- 
joined. No  pause  of  sullenness  or  misgiving  suspends 
their  obedience  to  the  command  once  known.  Their 
obedience  is  universal.  It  does  not  shew,  what  Grod 
in  his  earthly  church  condemns,  "  partiality"  in  His 
law, — a  preference  for  certain  portions,  and  a  neglect 
of  others  ;  a  cheapening  of  the  demands  of  the  law,  a 
Pharisaic  selection  of  the  lesser  and  oblivion  of  the 
greater  matters  of  that  law;  but  they  "have  respect 
to  all  his  commandments,"  and  assay  undivided  hom- 
age and  conformity.  Theirs  is  a  harmonious  obedi- 
ence. As  the  dying  Hooker  said  joyfully,  that  he  was 
going  from  a  world  of  confusion  to  one  of  order,  so  we 
do  well  to  remember,  how  each  votary  in  Heaven  fills 
his  place,  and  envies  not  nor  jostles  his  brother,  his  co- 
heir in  bliss,  and  his  fellow-helper  in  duty.  They  are 
lowly,  and  clothed  with  humility  amid  their  majesty. 
The  ofl&ces  which  we  should  scorn  as  menial,  and 
unbefitting  to  our  dignity,  the  highest  angels  would 
accept,  if  Grod  appointed  them,  without  hesitation  or 
regret.  It  was  the  pithy  saying  of  John  Newton,  the 
friend  of  Cowper,  that  should  two  angels  receive  at 
the  same  time  their  commission  from  Heaven,  the  one 
to  be  the  prime  minister  of  an  empire,  and  the  other 


LECTUREIV.  97 

to  sweep  the  streets  of  its  capital,  it  would  be  a  mat- 
ter  of  entire  indifference  to  each  of  the  two  delighted 
messengers  of  God's  will,  which  service  fell  to  his  lot, 
the  post  of  the  scavenger  or  that  of  the  premier.  They 
formed  a  chariot  and  coursers  of  fife  for  the  hair-clad 
prophet  of  Israel  ;  and  Ezekiel  saw  others  of  them  as 
wheels  with  many  eyes,  intelligent  and  observant,  yet 
subject  in  lowly  contentment  to  all  the  appointments 
of  their  sovereign  and  God.  Their  motives,  again,  are 
pure ;  and  theirs  is  unclouded  serenity  and  singleness 
of  intention,  aiming  e  'er  and  only  at  the  glory  of  God. 
Theirs  is  unwearied  perseverance,  and  day  and  night 
they  cease  not  to  renew  their  adoration  and  continue 
their  unfaltering  anthem  of  rapt  love.  As  Baxter  de- 
scribes them,  they  obey  "  understandingly,  sincerely, 
fully,  readily,  delightfully,  unweariedly,  and  concord- 
antly  ;"*  or  as  his  learned  and  devout  contemporary 
and  friend,  Archbishop  Ussher  represents  them,  "will- 
ingly, speedily,  sincerely,  fully,  and  constantly. "f 
They  count  not  their  palms  and  glorious  plainage 
soiled  in  uplifting  to  his  long-sought  home  above,  the 
beggar  Lazarus,  because  the  dust  had  been  his  couch  ; 
and  they  visit,  without  disgust  or  delay,  the  meanest 
hut  and  the  most  wretched  pallet  where  an  heir  of 
their  Father  is  drawing  his  latest  breath ;  nor  a'lns- 
house,  nor  dungeon,  nor  cross,  nor  pillory  seems  too 
debased  for  their  access,  if  Christ's  servant  be  meekly 
suffering  there. 

2.  But    beside    angels,  let  us  think  of  those  who 

*  Baxter's  Poor  Man's  Family  Book, 
f  Usbher's  Body  of  Divinity,  p.  437. 

5 


98 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER, 


were  like  us  sinners  once,  o?i  eanh.  lso^\  they,  be 
fore  the  throne,  know  no  more  the  dissensions,  and 
errors,  and  sectarian  badges,  and  rival  interests  of 
earth.  A  long  and  bright  cloud  of  witnesses,  each 
star  differing  fronj  its  fellow  in  glory,  they  form  a 
galaxy  resplendent  and  pure  ;  but  it  lies,  every  star 
of  it,  in  the  one  line  and  pathway  of  obedience  to  the 
Divine  Will.  Even  whilst  yet  on  earth,  the  Spirit  of 
Revelatiou  brought  Paul  to  call  the  will  of  Grod."  thai 
good,  and  acceptable,  and  perfect  will  of  God."*  But 
now  more  fully  than  ever  before,  he  and  each  one  of 
his  radiant  fellow-citizens  sees  the  will  and  law  of 
Heaven  such  ; — g;ood  in  its  authorship — good  in  its 
own  inherent  character — and  good  in  its  effects  and 
severest  sanctions  on  all  ranks  of  creation  ; — accept- 
able to  the  All- wise  God,  esteemed  and  rewarded  of 
Him — and  deserving  to  be  acceptable  to  all  like- 
minded  with  Him  ;  and  perfect,  lacking  no  precept  re- 
quisite to  its  symmetry,  overlooking  no  incident,  rating 
wrongly  no  agency  and  no  action,  and  showing  nought 
redundant  and  exaggerated,  nought  deficient  and  ab- 
sent, neither  an  excrescence  nor  a  blemish,  in  all  its 
scheme  and  plan  of  moral  beauty. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  when  I  am  thus  enjoined  to 
make  just  men  now  made  perfect  and  sinless,  and  un- 
fallen  seraphs  my  models  in  obedience  and  conformity 
to  the  Divine  Will,  am  I  not  virtually  taught  that  sin- 
less perfection  is  attainable  in  this  mortal  life  ?  Cer- 
tainly not,  in  the  face  of  other  plain  declarations  of 
Holy  Writ,  that  if  any  man  say  he  have  no  sin  he 

*  Rom.  xii.  2. 


LECTUREIV.  93 

ueoeiveth  himself;  and  when,  too,  a  similar  command 
is  left  us  as  to  G-od  himself:  "  Bo  ye  holy  for  I  am 
holy,"  and,  "  that  ye  may  be  perfect  as  your  Father 
in  Heaven  is  perfect."  Now,  none  can  expect  to  at- 
tain the  perfection  of  God,  though  it  is  thus,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  the  standard  of  the  law  of  their  endeavors. 
And  if  the  standard  do  not  imply  full  attainment  in 
one  case,  why  in  the  other  ? 

3.  But  beyond  this  present  life,  we  suppose  this 
petition  to  have  an  amplitude  of  meaning  that  sweeps 
the  millennial  glories  and  the  Judgment  Day  and 
Eternity,  in  its  themes  of  supplication.  To  ask  the 
conformity  of  Earth  to  Heaven, — to  implore  of  the 
universal  Sovereign  that  He  will  carry  out  an  Act  of 
Moral  Uniformity,  for  assimilating  this  revolted  prov- 
ince to  the  loyal  portions  of  his  Empire, — is  to  ask, 
that,  in  the  fulness  of  His  own  times,  all  the  visions  of 
prophecy  may  find  their  accomplishment,  and  all  the 
long  and  dark  mysteries  of  Providence  their  solution 
and  triumphant  consummation.  The  Christian's  life 
on  earth  is  one  long,  protracted  pupilage  of  unlearn- 
ing His  own  will  as  blind,  and  chaotic,  and  anarchical, 
and  ruinous.  He  sees  that  his  course,  when  self- 
willed,  was  that  of  the  wild  beast,  as  the  prophet 
paints  her  in  the  wilderness,  a  swift  dromedary,  "  tra- 
versing her  ways," — that  his  wishes  have  been  vari- 
able and  contradictory,  a  path  crossing  and  cutting 
itself,  until  it  became  a  knot  and  maze  without  clue 
or  goal.  The  world  count  it  heroic  in  the  young 
Casablanca,  in  the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  to  have  held, 
at  his  father's  command,  his  place  immovably  on  the 


100  THE     LORDS     PRAYER. 

deck  of  the  battle-ship,  though  he  knew  it  about  to 
explode.  Surely  there  is  truer  dignity  in  the  Chris- 
tian, determined  at  all  risks  to  obey  G-od  rather  than 
man,  and  to  keep  to  the  last  the  post  of  Duty,  as  the 
post  of  Glory  and  Bliss.  Contrast  with  the  believers 
course,  unrepining  and  persevering  to  the  end,  tho 
career  of  the  world's  desperate  martyrs.  On  the 
suicide's  tomb  you  may  write,  "  G-od's  will  was  not 
MINE."  What  He  appointed  I  could  not  abide.  I 
spurned  His  rod,  and  flang  up  His  gifts.  What  He 
bestowed  I  did  not  deem  worth  accepting.  The 
Christian,  in  another  school,  has  learned  that  the 
crowning  dignity  and  felicity  of  his  nature,  is  to  have 
his  will  sweetly  melted  into  that  of  his  God,  and  that 
his  bark  careers  safely  through  sunlight  and  through 
storms,  with  his  Father  at  the  helm.  And  with  his 
standard  of  comparison  habitually  derived  from  a 
higher  and  purer  clime,  how  is  the  disciple  of  Jesus 
both  furnished  with  the  means  of  reaching  a  higher 
moral  elevation  than  the  worldly  man,  and  of  preserv- 
ing at  the  same  time  a  habitual  lowliness,  that  the 
contemplation  of  inferior  and  terrestrial  models  could 
not  maintain  in  him;  and  how  does  he  also,  in  God's 
v/ill  for  his  law,  and  God's  love  for  his  motive,  and 
God's  Heaven  for  his  measure  of  appreciation,  and 
his  home  of  attraction,  find  an  unspent  spring  of 
energy,  an  unbroken  elasticity  of  principle,  that 
nought  else  can  minister  ? 

In  the  last  book  of  Revelation  we  are  told  that  only 
those  "  who  do  liis  commandments  have  alight  to  tki 
ree  of  life,  and  to  enter  in  through  the  gates  into  the 


LECTURE     IV.  101 

city."*  Let  us,  like  Augustine,  pray  of  God  to  write 
within  us  His  law,  and  put  within  our  souls  His  love 
Thus  Lord, — "  G-ive  what  Thou  commandest,  and  then 
command  what  Thou  wiLT."f 

1.  Are  we  tempted  to  murmur  at  the  want  of  im- 
mediate fruit  from  our  efforts,  and  yearn  for  the  in- 
stant fulfilment  of  the  prayer  and  of  the  promise  on 
which  the  petition  is  based,  let  us  remember  our  an- 
gelic partners  in  service  and  our  celestial  patterns  of 
obedience.  Is  the  turf  stubborn,  are  the  weeds  hardy, 
and  the  harvest  slow?  Still  plough,  and  sow,  and 
tend.  Is  the  heat  and  burden  of  your  day,  as  you 
think,  of  more  than  ordinary  intensity  and  heaviness  ? 
Think  you,  that  those  of  the  angelic  bands,  who, 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  announced  over  the  field? 
of  Bethlehem,  '  Glory  to  God  and  good- will  to  man,' 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  Prince  there  born  into  the 
world,  are  yet  faint  and  discouraged,  because  through 
eighteen  centuries  so  many  of  mankind  have  shown 
only  ill-will  to  the  gospel  and  denied  glory  to  its 
Author  and  God  ?  No ;  they  have  seen  hypocrisy 
and  heresy  in  the  nominal  church.  They  have  seen 
the  Crusades,  and  the  Inquisition,  and  Antichrist,  and 
the  caviller,  and  the  atheist, — all  apostasies  and  all 
scandals.  They  have  seen  Julian,  endeavoring  to  re- 
build  for  the  Jew  his  temple  a,t  Jerusalem,  in  order 
to  falsify  Christ's  prophesies ;  and  Voltaire  and  Paine 
forging  refutations  of  the  gospel.  They  have  seen  the 
Waldensian  martyrs  rolled  down  their  rocky  heights, 
and  heard  the  cry  of  the  blood  of  the  innocent,  as  it 
*  Rev.  sxii.  14.  -J-  "  Da  quod  jubes,  et  jube  quod  via" 


102  THE     lord's     PR  aver. 

exclaimed,  "  How  long  ?"  But  through  all  this  mist 
and  maze  of  wickedness,  they  have  seen  soaring 
quietly  and  steadily  heavenward,  the  kingdom  and 
throne  of  Christ.  Let  us  hope  on  and  toil  on ;  and 
let  us  serve  and  trust  God  as  they  do, — our" wiser  and 
better  and  more  far-seeing  coadjutors.  Their  white 
pinions  are  over  us.  Heaven  and  Destiny  are  with  uf 
2.  Are  we,  on  the  other  hand,  yet  strangers  ana 
enemies  to  Grod,  our  forgetfulness  and  disobedience 
cannot  wrench  the  world  from  its  moral  dependence, 
more  than  the  tiny  hand  of  your  child  can  untwine 
the  bands  of  gravitation  that  link  your  planet  to  the 
Sun  and  the  Solar  system.  As  said  the  manifested 
Jehovah  of  old  to  the  refractory  patriarch  Job,— 
"  Canst  thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades, 
or  loose  the  bands  of  Orion  ?"*  You  are,  in  the  pur- 
pose and  revealed  and  unrevealed  will  of  Grod, — in 
the  will  of  command  which  Scripture  has  already  un- 
veiled, and  in  the  will  of  control  which  Providence  is 
slowly  to  unveil  hereafter, — you  are  by  dependence, 
and  by  duty,  and  by  destiny,  a  creature  and  a  subject 
of  G-od.  Could  you  repeal  His  statute  of  subjection 
to  Him,  you  would  virtually  forfeit  your  right  to  con- 
trol or  use  any  of  His  subordinate  creatures,  in  the 
keeping  of  them  subject  to  you.  His  air,  when  you 
had  once  thrown  off  the  government  of  Him  its 
Maker,  might  refuse  to  fill  your  lungs, — His  earth,  to 
bear  your  tread — His  light,  to  beam  on  your  path — 
His  waters,  to  quench  your  thirst — His  fires,  to  warm 
yDur   shivering  limbs — and  His  food,  to  supply  any 

*  Jo  ;  xxxviii.  31. 


LECTURE      IV.  10(^ 

longer  the  strength  which  you  used  only  in  rebelling 
against  the  common  Lord  and  Proprietor  of  the  Uni- 
verse. If  you  quarrel  with  your  host  and  his  living 
and  habitation,  by  what  right  do  you  use  them  any 
longer  ?  Whilst  contending  against  God,  all  your 
mercies — friends,  home,  freedom,  books,  wealth, — are 
forfeited  mercies.  The  stars  in  their  courses  were 
said  by  the  Hebrew  prophetess  to  have  fought  against 
Sisera,  the  Lord's  enemy ;  and  soon,  if  you  are  the 
enemy  of  Christ,  sun,  moon,  and  stars, — day  and 
night, — summer  and  winter, — angels  and  men, — and 
years  and  ages, — all  worlds  and  all  beings, — will  be 
found  embattled  against  you  ;  and  the  wide  universe, 
its  rocks  and  its  hills,  its  trackless  fields,  its  forests, 
its  mountain  caves,  and  its  fathomless  abysses,  will 
afford  you  no  nook  to  shelter  you  from  the  wrath  of 
the  Lamb.  His  will  must  be  done  in  the  destruction 
of  the  sinner,  and  in  the  salvation  of  the  believer. 
The  prayer  is  nailed  as  an  edict  to  the  Throne  of 
Almightiness.  Will  you  obey,  or  must  you  confront 
that  will  ? — Will  you  become  its  victim  or  its  wor 
shipper  ? 


**  iint  lis  tljis  kti  nnr  kilt{  linail." 


LECTURE  V. 

*'i§m  m  \\p  ^  ni  hili|  \ixuf 

Matthew,  vi.  11 

How  majestic  is  the  imagery  of  Scripture,  wher.  J 
presents  to  us  our  Maker  and  Grod,  as  feeding  all  the 
orders  of  his  animate  creation,  and  ministering  contin- 
ually what  they  as  constantly  need,  for  the  sustentation 
of  the  life  which  He  has  bestowed  upon  them.  "  The 
eyes  of  all  wait  upon  Thee,  and  Thou  givest  them 
their  meat  in  due  season :  Thou  openest  Thine  hand 
and  satisfiest  the  desire  of  every  living  thing."*  "  He 
giveth  to  the  beast  his  food,  and  to  the  young  ravens 
which  cry."t  The  sea-gull  winnowing  the  salt  and 
wintry  air  along  our  coasts ;  the  petrel  twittering  in 
the  storm  over  the  far  blue  waves  of  mid-ocean ;  and 
all  the  tribes  that  cleave  the  air,  or  traverse  the  deep 
paths  of  the  seas,  or  rove  our  earth,  look  up  to  His 
daily  vigilance  and  bounty,  under  the  pressure  of  their 
daily  necessities.  To  Him  the  roaring  of  the  beast, 
and  the  chirping  of  the  bird,  and  the  buzzing  of  the 
insect,  are  but  one  vast  symphony  of  supplication  from 
*  Psalm  cxlv.  15,  16.  f  Psalm  cxlvii.  9. 


108  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  hosts  which  he  feeds.  To  His  capQious  garnera 
their  successive  generations  have  resoted,  and  yet 
those  stores  are  not  spent ;  neither  has  te  Heavenly 
Provider  failed  in  his  resources,  nor  have  tie  expectant 
pensioners  been  left  to  famish. 

To  God,  in  this  aspect  of  His  government,'^he  prayer 
now  brings  us.  All  the  petitions  which  prfc-,ede,  and 
which  compose  the  earlier  half  of  the  Lord\  Prayer, 
respect  the  end  for  which  man  lives  ; — the  gbry,  do- 
minion, and  service  of  his  Creator.  The  lattr  peti- 
tions, of  which  that  before  us  is  the  opening  oi;^,  and 
together  making  the  latter  half  of  the  prayer,  have 
reference  to  the  means  by  which  we  live  ;  the  boly  by 
means  of  Grod's  supplies  of  food ;  the  soul  by  Means 
of  the  pardon  for  sin,  by  the  victory  over  temptition, 
and  by  the  escape  from  evil  in  all  its  forms  and  al  its 
degrees,  which  we  implore  and  which  G-od  bestows. 
t  Of  the  two  portions  into  which  the  whole  prater 

\    thus  resolves  itself,  the  first  half,  beginning  with  th^ 
\    Father's  throne  in  Heaven,  comes  down,  by  the  stepa 
\  of  its  several  petitions,  to  man,  as  the  servant  of  his 
\  Father  on  the  earth.     "  Thy  will  be  done  in  Earth  as  it 
\is  in  Heaven."     The   second  portion  commences  with 
Vnan  and  his  lower  and  corporeal  needs  on  earth,  and 
plimbs  upward,   on    its    returning  way  to  the  skies, 
through  supplications  that  respect,  first,  man's  bodily, 
and  then  his  spiritual  wants,  and  implore  his  deliverance 
from  all  present  and  eternal  evil.     The  Prayer  becomes 
thus  like  an  endless  chain  in  our  wells.     Beginning  in 
Heaven   and  reaching   Earth,   and  then  returning  to 
Heaven  again,  it  is  seen  binding  together  the  throna 


LECTURE     V,  109 

and  the  footstool — God  the  sovereign  and  man  the  de- 
pendant. But,  in  the  well,  the  reservoir  is  below.  In 
the  government  of  God  the  reservoir  is  above.  It  is  the 
upper  deep  of  God's  mercy  and  grace  in  Jesus  Christ. 
There  are  some  interpreters  who  would  look  upon  the 
petition  of  our  text  as  figurative,  and  as  if  referring 
only  to  the  soul ;  as  though  bodily  wants  had  no  right  to 
appear  in  a  form  of  supplication  indited  by  Christ.  So 
Luther  at  one  time  interpreted  it,  as  a  request  to  be 
fed  upon  the  Bread  of  Heaven.  But  the  Saviour,  who 
gave  bread  to  the  multitudes  by  miracle,  and  who  at 
other  times  hungered  for  it  himself,  and  who  blessed 
it,  when  partaken  by  himself  and  his  disciples,  was 
not  certainly  degrading  either  himself  or  us,  in  teach- 
ing us  here  to  ask  for  bread,  in  its  literal  and  material 
sense.  The  God  who  made  the  body,  shall  He  scorn 
to  feed  it  ?  The  Redeemer  who  is  to  provide  in  the 
grave  for  the  guardianship  and  resurrection  of  the 
earthly  tabernacle,  shall  He  make  no  provision  for  that 
body  ere  it  goes  down  to  darkness  and  corruption — that 
body  which  is  made  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit? 
We  have  no  sympathy  with  the  materialism  that  re- 
members the  body  only.  As  well  might  the  bird  ab- 
jure the  wings  God  gave  it,  and  the  skies  which  he 
formed  it  to  traverse,  as  man  renounce  his  spiritual 
nature  and  internal  longings  ;  and  forget  the  eternity 
for  which  that  nature  is  destined.  But  if  we  would 
not,  on  the  one  hand,  be  materialists ;  so,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  little  can  we  sympathize  with  the  mistaken 
spiritualism  which  takes  no  thought  for  the  body, 
"  not  having  it  in  any  honor."     When  Paul  predicted 


110  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  "will-worship"  of  an  apostate  church,  in -his  letter 
to  the  Colossians,  he  described  it  as  "  neglecting  the 
body,  not  in  any  honor  to  the  satisfying  of  the  flesh."* 
True  piety  is  not  an  exile  from  the  home  and  the  farm, 
the  workshop  and  the  market,  and  the  court-house. 
If  a  man  is  religious,  his  religion  will  be  with  him  a1 
the  board  and  by  the  way,  in  the  earning  of  his  bread 
and  in  the  eating  of  it.  Primitive  disciples  were  dis- 
tinguished for  partaking  it  "  with  singleness  of  heart 
and  gladness."  Godliness  "  hath  promise  of  the  life 
that  now  is,^^  and  is  to  make  pure,  and  blest,  and  use- 
ful the  Christian's  eating  and  drinking,  even,  that  this 
and  whatever  else  he  does  on  earth,  may  be  done  to 
the  glory  of  Christ ;  and,  as  objects  in  themselves  of 
little  worth  become  valuable  when  enshrined  in  am- 
ber, so  piety  gives  a  peculiar  incrustation  of  holiness 
and  sweetness  to  the  details  of  every-day  life.  In  this 
most  comprehensive  petition  of  our  text,  we  ask  of 
Grod,  then,  our  bread.     In  that  brief  sentence  we 

I.  Confess  our  dependence.     "We  ask  Him,  to  g-ive  it. 

II.  We  pledge  our  sympathy.  We  pray  not,  self- 
ishly and  solitarily,  but  for  our  fellows,  the  needy 
around.  We  do  not  say  :  Give  me  my  portion ;  and 
let  this  man  ask  his  for  himself;  what  is  that  to  me? 
But  in  large  and  brotherly  tenderness,  we  go,  each  for 
all ;  "  Give  us  our  daily  bread." 

III.  And  lastly,  we  promise  by  implication  modera' 
lion  and  contentment.  We  ask  not  the  food  of  years, 
nor  do  we  implore  dainties  and  banquets ;  but  in  sim- 
plicity we  request  "  this  day  our  daily  bread." 

*  CoL  ii.  23. 


LECTURE     V.  Ill 

Dependence,  Sympathy,  and  Moderation,  all  are  then 
implied  in  this  sentence. 

I.  We  easily  forget,  and  yet  how  unreasonably,  our 
personal  and  constant  dependence  on  Grod.  We  can 
see  how  the  poor  widow,  whose  barrel  of  meal  has 
failed,  and  whose  cruse  of  oil  is  spent,  should  and  can 
ask  thus  humbly  and  urgently  the  day's  provender  ; 
but  it  seems  strange  to  us  at  first,  that  such  a  petition 
should  suit  as  well  the  rich, — the  owner  of  houses  and 
farms  and  bank-stock, — the  man  whose  garners  con- 
tain food  that  would  supply  bread  for  myriads  of 
mouths,  besides  his  own,  and  this  not  for  to-day  only, 
but  for  years  hence — the  merchant,  it  may  be,  whose 
groaning  warehouses  would  victual  whole  navies.  We 
can  see  how  David  might,  naturally  and  most  urgently, 
offer  such  a  prayer  as  is  our  text,  on  the  day  when  he 
and  his  soldiers  were  hungering  and  the  shew-bread 
was  given  them  ;  but  how  Solomon  his  son  could  use 
it,  when  his  purveyors  sent  him,  month  by  month, 
such  profuse  supplies  for  his  table  and  palace,  seems 
not  so  easy  to  be  understood.  And  yet  this  very  lan- 
guage would  equally  suit  both, — the  hunger-bitten 
father  in  the  day  of  his  want,  and  the  luxurious  son 
in  the  season  of  his  imperial  opulence.  Job  in  his 
palmy  days,  when  he  was  the  richest  of  all  the  men  of 
the  East,  and  when  his  sons  were  feasting  each  in  his 
own  house ;  and  Joseph,  when  opening  the  granaries 
of  Egypt,  where  he  had  laid  up  the  food  of  seven  plen- 
teous years,  for  an  entire  nation — each  needed  the 
spirit,  if  not  the  terms,  of  this  prayer  :  and  we  doubt 
not  each  was  wont  to  sit  down  to  his  own  well-stored 


112  THE     LORD   S     PRAYER. 

board  in  the  temper,  dependent  and  grateful,  which  ii 
inculcated  by  this  very  prayer.  Do  not  the  rich  de- 
pend ?  Let  an  incensed  and  forgotten  God  send  but  a 
horde  of  his  insect  ravagers  into  the  garners  of  wealth 
and  pride,  and  how  soon,  and  how  surely,  is  all  tlieir 
accumulated  abundance  converted  into  rottenness. 
Let  him  allow  their  tried  sagacity  to  be  at  fault,  and 
how  easily  one  rash  speculation  sweeps  off,  as  with 
the  besom  of  destruction,  the  gains  of  a  life-time,  and 
writes  them  bankrupt  and  penniless. 

A  man  may  be  proud  of  his  industry,  and  economy, 
and  skill ;  a  nation  may  exult  over  their  enterprise 
and  energy  ;  but  are  not  these,  or  the  qualities  that 
win  bread,  and  win  it  abundantly,  themselves  g'ifts  of 
Heaven  ?  "  Is  it  not  He  that  giveth  thee  power  to 
get  wealth  ?"  The  statesman  or  political  economist, 
who  overlooks  this  palpable  truth,  has  little  reason  to 
boast  of  his  discernment.  All  the  praise  of  a  man  or 
of  a  measure, — of  a  political  leader,  or  of  a  party  and 
its  policy, — that  stops  short  of  God,  is  like  the  stolid- 
ity of  the  heathen  fisherman  represented  in  Scripture 
as  burning  incense  to  his  net  and  drag.  Is  it  not  He, 
that  bestowed  all  the  material  constituents  of  wealth, 
the  ores  and  gems  hid  in  the  recesses  of  the  earth,  as 
well  as  the  harvests  reaped  from  its  fields ;  and  is  it 
not  His  Providence  that  discovers  to  man,  in  the  fitting 
age  and  hour,  the  treasures  of  Nature,  and  suggests 
all  the  inventions  of  Art  ?  If  He  be  forgotten  or  de- 
fied ;  it  is  but  for  Him  to  speak,  and  the  blight  on  the 
wheat,  or  the  blasting  of  the  root  on  which  a  whole 
people  feeds,  shall  send  famine,  and  perhaps  pestilence 


LECTURE     V.  113 

through  all  its  borders ;  or  leaving  to  a  nation  these 
stores,  he  may  curse  them,  and  our  abundance  pam- 
pers our  sensuality  and  poisons  our  virtues.  He  who 
of  old  guided  the  flight  of  the  quails  over  the  tents  of 
the  chosen  tribes  in  the  wilderness,  is  not  He,  the 
same  in  skill,  yet  guiding  the  crowds  of  the  fisher- 
men's finny  spoil,  beneath  or  far  aside  from  their  barks  ? 
Can  the  trapper  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  or  the  har- 
pooner  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  succeed,  but  as  Grod  main- 
tains and  guides  their  chosen  prey  ?  The  Puritan 
fathers  when  they  eked  out  the  scanty  supplies  of 
their  first  years  with  the  shell-fish  of  our  coasts,  and 
blest  Grod  for  showing  them  the  "  treasures,"  as  they 
beautifully  quoted  the  Scripture,  "  hid  in  the  sand," 
were  setting  a  lesson  of  pious  acknowledgment,  which 
their  children  in  our  days  would  do  well  to  remember, 
when  sifting  other,  and  perhaps  far  more  baleful 
treasures  out  of  the  golden  sands  of  California, 

Does  a  parent,  or  husband,  or  child,  spread  with 
care  and  bounty  your  board  ?  Who  gave  to  you  that 
relative,  and  sustains  in  liim  health  and  life,  keeps  alive 
towards  yourself  that  kinsman's  kindly  feelings,  and 
blesses  his  diligence  with  success  ; — if  it  be  not  Grod  ? 
For  the  industry  of  ourselves  or  others  that  earned 
this  day's  meal,  or  the  bounty  of  our  fellow-men  that 
ministered  it, — for  the  health  that  relished  it,  and  the 
strength  which  it  upheld,  we  each  of  us  owed  Grod 
thanks  with  each  repast  we  have  this  Jay  partaken. 
And  to  tighten  our  sense  of  obligation — ^to  encircle, 
as  by  frequent  repetition  of  the  bonds,  our  hearts  more 
habitually  with  His  love — God  would  have  our  recog- 


114  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

nition  of  i'l  daily  ;  and  as  each  day  He  supplies  our  re- 
past, so  we  each  day  should  convert  it,  by  truest  devo- 
tion and  gratitude,  into  a  thank-offering  to  Him  our 
most  gracious  Father. 

But  it  may  be  said :  "We  incurred  weakness  and 
anxiety,  wasting  toil  and  corroding  care,  and  immi- 
nent peril  even,  to  earn  for  ourselves  and  our  babes 
our  frugal  portion ;  if  Grod  is  to  be  called  the  Griver, 
why  should  He  not  bestow  it  without  fatigue,  instead 
of  selling  it,  as  it  were,  to  our  hard  labor  ?  We  an- 
swer :  The  sweat  of  his  brow,  in  which  man,  after 
the  fall,  was  commanded  to  eat  his  bread,  is  itself  a 
blessing.  Toil  hedges  him  in  with  protection  from  a 
thousand  fatal  temptations.  By  these  very  snares, 
those  of  more  fertile  lands,  and  of  more  luxurious 
climes,  and  of  larger  inheritances,  are  seen  to  fall  con- 
tinually an  easy  and  unresisting  prey.  Plenty  with- 
out toil,  is  more  often  a  curse  than  a  gift,  and  we  fear 
thousands  of  those  who  now  yearn  and  haste  to  be 
rich,  with  little  cost  of  time  or  labor,  will  find  it  so, 
not  in  this  world  only,  but  in  the  next  as  well.  It  has 
been  the  more  rugged  and  niggard  soil  of  the  North 
that  has  reared  the  nobler  races ;  whilst  the  sunny 
South,  on  her  lap  of  exuberance,  has  too  often  dandled 
but  the  feeble  and  the  luxurious,  the  thriftless,  the 
inert,  and  the  vicious.  The  sands  of  Arabia,  in  their 
glaring  barrenness,  have  helped  Ishmael's  sons  to  pre- 
serve their  centuries  of  independence  and  their  manly 
vigor,  notwithstanding  their  torrid  climate.  God 
really  gives  when  requiring  us  to  toil  for  His  gift.  He 
doubles  in  fact  the   gift,  by  bestowing  not  only  the 


LECTURE     V.  115 

food,  but  increase.!  vigor  of  body  and  mind  in  the  pro- 
cess of  winning  it. 

II.  It  was  saiiJ,  that  the  terms  of  the  text  pledged 
us  to  brotherly  sympathy.  And  how  many  need 
<his  ? 

The  Bread  Question,  as  it  was  called  in  Britain, 
became  one  of  the  gravest  and  most  pressing  that  tried 
modern  statesmanship.  Pauperism  must  be,  and 
should  be  fed  ;  but  how  ?  Catholicism  taunts  Protes- 
tantism with  the  pauperism  of  England,  as  if  it  were 
chargeable  on  the  rejection  of  the  Roman  faith.  But 
in  answer  to  this,  it  is  sufficient  to  say,  that  the  pau- 
perism of  British  countries  is  found  mainly  in  the  class 
who  are  not  church-goers.  The  artisan  and  plough- 
man, who  have  become  imbruted  and  sceptical,  who 
keep  no  Sabbath,  and  read  no  Bible,  and  never  enter 
the  sanctuary,  are  in  Protestant  England,  the  chief 
burdens  on  the  Poor  Fund.  Those  who  visit  the  Sab- 
bath-school, and  the  chapel,  or  the  church,  both  in  the 
mining  and  manufacturing  districts,  are  less  griev- 
ously and  less  often  the  victims  of  want.  But  in 
Catholic  countries,  it  is  the  church-going, — those  whc 
haunt  the  porch  and  the  altar,  and  the  confessional, 
and  keep  the  church-holidays,  that  are  the  most 
shameless  and  importunate  in  their  mendicancy.  The 
poor  of  the  Protestant  countries  are  by  their  religion 
kept  mainly  from  the  worst  woes  and  vices  of  the  pau- 
perism around  them,  which  preys  mainly  on  the  re- 
jecters or  neglecters  of  their  religion.  But  the  poor 
of  Catholic  countries  are  made  such  and  kept  such  hy 
their  faith  ;  by  its  festivals,  fostering  idleness;  by  tha 


116 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 


mendicancy  of  many  of  its  religious  orders  of  Friars, 
and  by  the  mortmain  engrossment  of  large  portions  of 
the  nation's  soil,  and  the  nation's  resources,  in  the  sup- 
port of  monastic  establishments,  which  consume  but 
do  not  produce. 

Again,  the  pauperism  of  Protestant  England  is  not 
either  as  deep  or  deplorable  as  that  of  Catholic  Ireland  ; 
nor  that  of  the  Protestant  cantons  in  Switzerland  like 
that  of  Catholic  Savoy.  We  say  this  but  in  passing, 
and  in  reply  to  an  unjust  impeachment  which  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  often  brings. 

But  wherever  population  has  become  dense,  and 
labor  difficult  to  be  obtained,  pauperism  has  grown  into 
a  formidable  evil.  It  is  in  many  lands  the  great  ques- 
tion of  the  times.  The  gaunt  and  hollow-eyed  clan  of 
the  "  Wants"  are  confronting  the  more  sleek,  but  the 
less  numerous,  and  the  feebler  house  of  the  "  Haves." 
Shall  the  sinewy  grasp  of  Famine's  bony  hand  be  laid 
on  the  pampered  throat  of  Luxury,  and  a  violent  social 
revolution  assay  to  right  for  a  time  the  dread  inequal- 
ity ?  We  believe  that  to  the  lands  which  know  not 
or  scorn  the  gospel,  there  are  few  enemies  which  they 
have  more  cause  to  fear,  than  this  famishing  multi- 
tude— fierce,  unrestrained,  and  illiterate — a  Lazarus 
without  a  gospel  and  without  a  God,  turning  wolf- 
like in  the  blindness  of  its  misery,  and  its  brute 
strength,  on  a  Dives  without  conscience  and  without 
mercy. 

The  poor  must  be  relieved,  but  not  in  indolence. 
That  gosnel  which  is  so  eminently  a  message  for  the 
poor,  yet  declares,  that,  if  any  man  will  not   work 


LECTURE     V.  117 

neither  shall  he  eat.  Society  must  not  overlook  her 
destitute  children,  but  she  must  not  nurse  and  fatten 
them  in  sloth.  If  on  the  other  hand,  she  undertake 
to  supply  and  direct  all  their  labor,  she  would  restrain 
rather  than  foster  enterprise  and  industry  If  she 
corapci  work,  she  must  have  despotic  powers  to  ex- 
tort it.  If  she  resolutely  cling  to  free  institutions,  and 
reject  despotism,  she  must  forego  the  compulsory 
requirement  of  the  labor  ;  and,  then,  is  it  charity  to 
bestow  the  unearned  pay,  and  whilst  the  sluggard  folds 
his  arms,  to  thrust  alms  betwixt  his  teeth  ?  We  do 
not  see  in  Association  or  Social  Revolution,  or  in  any 
system  of  mere  Political  Legislation,  the  full  remedy 
of  this.  The  gospel  must  come  in,  and  by  its  influ- 
ence on  personal  conscience  and  on  individual  char- 
acter, teach  the  poor  self-respect,  diligence,  and  econ- 
omy and  content ;  and  require  of  the  rich  sympathy, 
and  compassion,  and  bounty,  for  their  more  necessi- 
tous brethren.  Christ  is  needed,  not  only  as  an  Inter- 
preter and  a  Daysman  betwixt  man  and  Grod,  He  is 
needed  also,  in  the  daily  business  of  the  world,  as  a 
Daysman  betwixt  the  several  classes  of  society,  that 
now  eye  each  other  askance, — each  endeavoring  to 
abridge  its  own  duties,  and  exaggerating  its  demands 
upon  the  class  opposed  to  itself. 

And  ought  the  wealthy  to  forget  ever  the  bonds  of 
sympathy  that  bind  them,  amid  their  opulence  and 
in  their  ceiled  houses,  and  their  elegant  leisure,  to  the 
multitudes  around  ?  Are  they  wealthy  ?  The  poor 
man  aided  in  building,  storing,  and  sailing  their  argo- 
sies ;  and  in  rearing  and  guarding  their  sumptuous 


118 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER, 


abodes.  The  poor  man  takes,  to  protect  their  slum- 
bers, the  watchman's  dreary  beat,  and  the  fireman's 
noble  risks.  Every  grain  of  sugar,  and  every  lock  of 
cotton,  that  passes  through  their  warehouses,  is  the 
fruit  of  the  labor  of  some  other  of  the  great  house- 
hold,— their  kindred  and  their  duty  to  whom  they 
may  not  justly  disavow.  The  purple  and  fine  linen 
passed  through  the  poor  man's  hands  at  the  loom  and 
the  vat ;  and  not  an  ornament  or  a  comfort  decks  or 
gladdens  them,  in  their  persons  or  in  their  houses,  on 
which  the  horny  palm  of  Want  has  not  at  some  time 
wearily  rested.  In  one  apartment,  there  have  met 
the  toils  of  the  colliers  of  Northumberland,  and  of  the 
potters  of  Staffordshire.  Upon  one  and  the  same 
table,  are  grouped  the  offerings  of  the  Mexican  miner 
and  of  the  British  cutler,  of  the  Scottish  weaver  and 
the  Irish  cotter,  of  the  tea-gatherer  of  "  far  Cathay," 
and  of  the  whalefisher  of  their  own  Nantucket.  "  We 
are  members  one  of  another."  We  cannot  forget  it 
with  impunity.  If  each  member,  of  the  great  brother- 
hood of  the  nations,  were  to  come  and  claim  back  his 
contributions  to  our  daily  comforts ;  how  poor  and 
forlorn  should  we  be  left.  Our  common  Father  would 
not  have  us  overlook  it,  in  the  benefits  it  has  brought, 
and  in  the  bonds  which  it  imposes.  We  owe  much  to 
our  fellows  ;  and  we  owe  more  to  Him,  To  Him,  the 
wealthiest  capitalist  who  rules  the  exchanges  of  a 
nation,  owes  as  much  of  hourly  obligation,  for  life  and 
food,  and  health  and  competence,  as  did  Elijah  the 
prophet,  in  the  sore  famine,  when  God  was  feeding 
him  by  daily  miracle  at  the  brook,    and    ravens  were 


LECTURE     V. 


119 


his  purveyors,  or  in  the  house  of  the  widow  of  Sarepta. 
Now,  one  mode  of  acknowledging  gratefully  our  in- 
debtedness to  God,  is  by  the  fraternal  acknowledg- 
ment of  obligation  to  our  brethren,  whom  as  His  pen- 
sioners, He  transfers  to  our  care. 

The  rich,  then,  are  not  entitled  to  be  profuse  and 
wasteful, — and  thus,  to  empty  the  granaries,  as  it 
were,  of  many  coming  years  and  of  many  needy 
households,  in  selfish  rioting  and  prodigality.  We  do 
not  call  for  the  enactment  of  sumptuary  laws  ;  but 
we  suppose  Christianity  to  require  of  its  individual 
disciples,  that  "  their  moderation  should  be  known  to 
all  men." 

HI.  And,  thus,  we  reach  the  third  division  of  our 
theme.  The  petition  intimates  a  daily  lesson  of  con- 
tent and  moderation.  "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily 
BREAD."  "  Having  food  and  raiment,"  says  the  apos- 
tle, "  let  us  be  therewith  content.''^  We  ask  not  from 
our  God  luxuries,  but  necessaries.  We  come  not  with 
remote  and  far-reaching  cares  of  the  morrow,  and  of 
the  following  week  and  month,  that  may  roll  over  our 
graves, — or  of  years  which  we  may  not  be  here  to 
count ;  but  we  stint  our  anxieties  to  the  needs  of  the 
day  that  is  passing  over  our  heads.  Could  we  but  do 
this,  and  take  each  day,  thought  for  the  cares  of  the 
day;  how  much  would  the  inevitable  sorrows  of  life 
be  lightened,  and  its  many  mercies  enhanced  and 
sweetened.  Life's  unwieldy  loads  would  be,  by  this 
divine  philosophy,  carved  into  manageable  portions, 
not  too  heavy  ever  for  the  jaded  and  peeled  shoulders. 
It  were  our  consolation  and  our  support,  if  we  could 


120  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

keep  our  anxieties  within  the  hedge  of  the  present 
day  ;  and  if  we  thus  bounded  our  desires  and  fears 
more  closely.  The  covetous  is  not  content  with  his 
own  share ;  but  would  have  his  neighbor's  also,  and 
not  for  one  day  but  for  many  generations.  If  a  fortune 
have  been  gained  by  working  the  poor  at  prices  that 
but  just  kept  their  lips  above  the  choke-damp  of  star- 
vation ; — or  if,  in  the  strong  language  of  Scripture, 
we  have  been  ^^  grinding  their  faces'"'  till  the  traces 
and  lineaments  of  our  common  humanity  were  almost 
worn  off  them  ; — what  is  a  heritage,  so  won,  better 
than  the  wealth  of  a  pirate  wrecker,  composed  of  the 
broken  and  plundered  barks  of  the  voyagers  whom  he 
has  lured  to  the  shore,  to  batten  on  the  fruits  of  their 
robbery  and  ruin. 

"We  sin,  also,  against  the  spirit  of  this  petition  by 
what  the  Scripture  calls,  "  making  haste  to  he  richy 
The  large  and  perilous  speculation, — the  eager  and  un- 
reflecting pursuit  of  gain, — have  ruined  more  traders 
than  they  have  enriched ;  and  some  of  the  few  thus 
enriched,  have  been  made  so,  at  the  expense,  there  is 
reason  to  fear,  of  their  conscience  and  their  eternal 
salvation.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  gambler  casting  his 
bread,  and,  it  may  be,  that  of  his  children,  and,  it 
may  be,  that  of  his  trusting  employers,  on  the  chances 
of  the  card  or  the  turn  of  the  die. 

2.  The  terms  of  the  prayer  teach  moderation  to  the 
wealthy,  as  well  as  contentment  to  the  less  affluent. 
To  ask  daily  bread  was  Barzillai's  duty,  amid  all  that 
splendid  wealth  which  enabled  him  to  feed  David  and 
his  entire    army.     So  we,  however  wealthy,  asking 


LECTURE     V,  121 

daily  bread,  are  not  entitled  to  lavish,  in  gluttony  and 
insane  profusion,  the  bread  of  myriads  for  many  years. 
One  of  the  sins  that  called  down  from  Heaven  the 
terrific  bolt  of  the  first  French  Revolution,  was  thai 
prodigal  luxury  of  the  nobility  and  court,  which  dared 
to  run  to  all  excesses  of  riot  amid  a  famishing  people, 
and  with  a  bankrupt  exchequer, — with  the  selfish 
cry :  "  After  us,  let  there  come  the  Deluge."  It 
came  for  them.  Fashion  and  Pride  rob  Charity. 
"When  the  Egyptian  queen,  to  make  a  draught  of  un- 
paralleled costliness,  melted  a  most  precious  pearl  in 
her  goblet, — and  when  in  the  days  of  Charles  V.,  a 
merchant-prince  of  Germany  kindled  a  fire  of  cin- 
namon for  his  kingly  guest, — the  gem  and  the  wood 
might  well  perhaps  be  spared,  as  far  as  referred  to 
any  immediate  use  which  the  poor  could  have  made 
of  them ;  but  if  the  price  of  them  were  so  much  de- 
ducted from  what  might  have  fed  needy  thousands, 
this  destruction  of  value,  for  purposes  of  mere  osten- 
tation, cannot  certainly  be  regarded  as  being  just. 
"Our  superfluities,"  said  Howard,  "  must  give  place 
to  our  brother's  necessities."  That  maxim  w^ould 
replenish  every  poor  fund  and  mission  treasury  under 
the  cope  of  Heaven. 

3.  Taken  in  its  entire  and  unbroken  continuity,  this 
supplication  rebukes  the  distrustful.  Has  not  He  who 
taught  us,  this  day,  to  ask  the  day's  supplies,  else- 
where promised,-  that,  as  our  day  is  so  shall  our 
strength  be  ?  And  does  not  the  promise  include  the 
bread  and  the  water  as  being  made  sure,  which  are  to 
sustain  that  strength  ?     But  the  principle  does  not  pat- 

6 


122  THE     lord's     prayer. 

ronize,  on  the  other  hand,  the  indolent  aud  improvu 
dent,  who  expect  to  be  fed  of  God  and  man,  without 
effort  or  care  on  their  own  part.  It  condemns  waste 
on  the  one  hand,  and  niggardliness  on  the  other, — un- 
due care,  and  overmuch  carefulness.  It  would  not 
have  its  Marthas  cumbered  about  much  serving,  nor 
would  it  allow  its  Peters  to  waste  time  and  strength 
in  dreaming  idle  dreams  and  building  useless  taber- 
nacles on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration,  when  the  glo- 
rious vision  of  the  hour  has  now  swept  past,  and  whilst 
Duty  and  Need  now  call  them  to  the  valley  below. 

4.  It  bears,  as  we  have  already  seen,  on  the  great 
social  question  of  our  times,  which  we  have  not  here 
time  or  the  fitting  place  thoroughly  to  discuss;  the 
question,  What  are  the  dues  of  Property,  and  what 
the  rights  and  remedies  of  Poverty  ?  The  Bible  does 
not  denounce  property,  but  it  does  denounce  the  Self- 
ishness that  would  gormandize  at  the  hearth,  while 
Poverty  is  starving  at  the  gate ;  and  it  condemns,  as 
mockery,  the  piety  that  but  utters  kindly  wishes  and 
sings  fluent  Psalms,  whilst  a  hungry  brother  is  dis- 
missed unfed.  "  How  can  the  love  of  Grod,"  asks  the 
apostle,  "  abide  in  him,"  who  thus  wants  the  love  of 
his  brother?  The  "solidarity"  of  society  and  of  the 
race, — the  fact  that  mankind  are  one  great  body, — in 
another  sense,  however,  than  French  infidelity  teaches 
it — was  already,  centuries  since,  the  teaching  of  the 
Bible.  We  are  bound  to  each  other, — the  rich  and 
the  poor, — the  educated  and  the  ignorant, — the  citizen 
and  the  tiller, — the  employer  and  the  workman, — the 
rude  and  the  refined, — the  heathen  and  the  Christian, 


LECTURE     V.  123 

—the  native  and  the  emigrant, — by  ligaments  and 
nerves  and  veins,  that  can  be  severed  only  by  rending 
and  depleting  the  arteries,  and  only  by  stopping  the 
heart,  and  expelling  the  life  of  the  body  politic. 

5.  Lastly,  the  text  bears  on  our  choice  of  a  profes- 
sion, or  a  home,  wherein  to  win  and  to  eat  our  daily 
bread.  If  we  look  for  God  to  ^ive  it,  we  must  not  re- 
sort to  methods  which  a  holi/  Grod  cannot  bless.  Wo 
may  not  ask  Jehovah,  as  do  Hindoos  their  gods,  to 
patronize  theft,  or  fraud,  or  murder.  The  priests  of 
Jeroboam,  intruding,  against  Grod's  laws,  into  a  holy 
office  for  the  piece  of  bread  which  it  brought,  were  sin- 
ners in  thus  seeking  their  food.  Christ  our  Lord,  when 
needing  bread  to  stay  his  own  sore  and  long-protracted 
hunger,  would  not  sin  against  His  Father's  will  and 
work  an  unseasonable  miracle,  that  He  might  obtain 
that  bread  so  needful  and  so  strongly  coveted.  We 
are  not  entitled  to  resort  to  criminal  pursuits,  what- 
ever the  stress  of  our  wants.  The  British  manufac- 
turers, who,  to  win  filthy  lucre,  have  cast  brazen  idols 
for  the  Hindoo  market,  are  worse,  because  more  en- 
lightened, than  the  shrine-makers  of  Diana  of  Ephe- 
sus,  and  have  sinned  most  fearfully  against  that  gos- 
pel, which  is  the  glory  and  bulwark  of  their  land,  by 
thus  pandering  for  gain  to  the  idolatry  which  Heaven 
so  detests.  Is  the  opium-trade  of  Britain  and  Amer- 
ica to  China  more  innocent  ?  Or,  shall  we  defend  the 
traffic  of  the  man  who  amongst  us,  in  the  dram-shop, 
puts  the  bottle  to  his  neighbor's  mouth  ?  Can  these 
ask  or  expect  the  blessing  of  God  on  their  daily  bread, 
who  win  it  by  wrong,  by  pandering   to  the  evil  pas- 


124  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

sions  of  their  fellows, — and  by  the  ruin  of  innocence 
and  inexperience, — by  the  distortion  of  truth,  and  the 
diffusion  of  known  slander  and  falsehood  ?  The  wicked 
excuse  themselves  with  the  plea,  "  We  must  live." 
They  would  form  the  sentence  more  perfectly,  if  the^ 
would  say,  "  We  must  live  forever."  And  because 
we  are  to  live,  after  death,  in  eternal  woe  or  bliss,  we 
cannot  and  must  not,  whilst  we  live  here,  disobey  and 
defy  God.  And  yet  how  many  are  there,  in  Christian 
lands,  who  are  content  to  fish  their  foul  bread  out  of 
the  standing  pools  and  the  slimiest  ooze  of  human  de- 
pravity— who,  dipping  their  daily  morsel,  as  into  the 
gangrenes  and  ulcers  of  the  body  politic,  bequeath  to 
their  children  the  wages  of  wickedness,  and  the  gain, 
that  cost  to  many  their  peace  of  mind,  and  their  char- 
acter, and  their  principles,  and  their  hopes  of  Heaven. 
Do  not  authors  and  publishers  owe  it  to  themselves, 
that  they  should  look  narrowly  to  the  character  and 
influence  of  the  literature  which  they  aid  in  producing 
and  diffusing  ?  If  a  man's  pen  be  his  heritage,  he 
may  not  make  it  into  a  picklock,  or  a  poisoned  sti- 
letto. Was  there  not,  in  the  boast  of  Southey  to  By- 
ron that  he,  the  laureate,  had  never,  in  his  literary 
tasks,  aided  to  manufacture  furniture  for  the  brothel, 
a  noble  claim,  and  higher  honor  than  a  peerage ;  and 
yet,  was  it  not  more  than  cbxi  justly  be  claimed  by  all 
the  book-makers  and  all  the  book-venders  of  our  own 
country  and  city  ? 

"  A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of 
the  things  he  possesseth."  Such  was  Christ's  philos- 
ophy.     And,  my  fellow-immortal,  are  not  conscienca 


LECTURE     V.  125 

and  experience  on  the  side  of  that  saying  ?  Look 
round.  Contrast  the  sinner,  in  abundance,  but  un- 
forgiven, — unchanged  in  heart,  and  impenitent, — in 
his  trouble,  in  his  bereavements,  or  in  his  death-scene, 
with  the  poor  but  pious  man.  Not  cleansed  in  Christ'^ 
atoning  blood,  not  born  again  of  the  renewing  Spirit, 
how  can  the  one  be  blest  ?  Beneath  the  threadbare 
and  ill-shapen  coat  of  the  other,  may  beat  a  thankful 
heart.  His  frugal  meal  may  be  sanctified  by  earnest 
prayer,  and  made  sweet  to  himself  and  fragrant  to  hia 
God,  by  up-streaming  gratitude.  How  glorious  to  him 
are  life's  mercies.  The  sunbeam  shines  from  his 
Father's  throne;  and  the  rain  drops  from  his  Father's 
hand  :  and  how  blessed  and  disciplinary  to  him  are 
life's  inevitable  trials.  His  soul  is  safe.  He  has 
secured  the  "  main  chance.''^  Who  of  you  that  loses 
his  soul,  has  done  that  ?  If  you  miss  Paradise  at  the 
last,  can  you  be  called  rich,  though  you  inherit  mines 
and  empires  ?  It  is  the  end  that  crowns  the  work, 
and  decides  the  character. 

Are  you  young?  Resolve,  that  you  will  not  sell 
truth  and  conscience,  or  profane  the  iSabbath,  or  wrest 
justice,  to  win  your  food.  Are  you  poor  ?  Seek  to 
know  Grod  ;  and  poverty  will  be  sanctified  if  not  re- 
moved. And  soon  all' the  discomforts  of  the  earth, 
which  is  but  the  inn  and  the  highway,  will  be  forgot- 
ten in  the  rest,  and  plenty,  and  gladness  of  the  Fa- 
ther's heavenly  mansions,  the  celestial  home  before  you. 
Are  you  richly  supplied  with  earthly  good  ?  Make 
not  IT — so  perishable  a  portion,  held  by  so  brief  a  ten- 
ure, your  boast,  your  trust,  your  Heaven,  and  Christ, 


126  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

and  all.  Have  you  God  for  a  father  ?  Serve  him  by 
generosity  and  brotherly  sympathy;  and  let  your  alms, 
and  prayers,  and  gentle  kindness  smooth  the  rugged- 
ness  of  the  poor  man's  path,  and  cause  the  widow's 
heart  to  sing  for  joy.  Are  you  desolate — and  needy — 
and  tempted  ? — Do  thy  babes  cry,  and  yet  have  not 
food  ?  Yet  are  not  children  a  blessing  ;  and  is  not 
forgiven  sin  ;  and  is  not  the  hope  of  Heaven,  a  bless- 
ing? Does  the  selfishness  of  man  threaten  to  freeze 
at  times  your  outgushing  sympathies ;  and  do  the  tri- 
als of  Earth  suggest  murmurings  against  the  justice 
of  Heaven  ?  Banish  the  temptation,  ere  it  coil  itself 
into  thy  heart  of  hearts,  empoisoning  thy  soul,  and  de- 
vouring there  all  peace  and  all  trust.  Banish  the 
doubt.  Crush  its  adder  head  against  Christ's  blessed 
promises,  and  on  the  steps  of  His  mercy-seat, — where 
prayer  is  heard,  and  sorrow  staunched,  and  grace  con- 
ferred. See  the  sparrow  fed  without  garners,  and  the 
lily  clad,  without  an  income ; — and  shall  He  who 
hears  the  twittering  of  the  one  and  furnishes  the  gar- 
niture of  the  other — shall  He  not,  much  more,  clothe 
and  feed  you,  0  ye  of  little  faith  ? 

Yes.  He  who  gave  His  own  Son  to  ransom  us  sin- 
ners,— how  shall  He  not,  with  Him,  freely  give  us  all 
things  ?  And  that  Son,  giving  his  flesh  to  be  the  life 
of  the  soul,  and  becoming  to  the  regenerate  believer 
the  Bread  of  Heaven, — the  true  and  spiritual  manna, — 
how  shall  He  forget  or  fail  to  meet  all  the  lesser  needs 
of  His  people,  as  they  wrestle  their  militant  way  to 
His  home  and  throne, — along  the  narrow  path  of  his 
own  tracing,  and  through  the  thronging  tribulations  of 


LECTURE     V.  127 

His  own  appointment  and  admeasurement  ? — Heaven 
and  Earth  shall  pass  away,  but  one  jot  or  tittle  of  His 
word  shall  never  lack  its  accomplishment.  Trust  Him 
only,  as  to  the  season,  and  as  to  the  mode  of  accom- 
plishing it.  Both  the  time  and  the  shape  of  the  deliv- 
erance will  be  wisely,  and  it  may  be  mysteriously 
selected  :  but  surer  than  the  shining  of  sun,  moon  and 
stars,  is  the  truth  of  His  covenant — is  the  safety  of 
His  people — is  the  final  and  entire  vindication  of  all 
His  providential  dispensations. 


"  i^iiii  fnrgiHr  m  cur  MU  ns  mt  fnrgk  nur  hlitnrs." 


LECTURE  VI. 

"  ^nl  fnrgiDE  m  ux  Mb  m  m  fnrgtm  nnr  hhtnrB/' 

Matthew,  yi.  12 

"  Gtive"  and  "  Forgive:"  such  needs  to  be  our  per- 
petual appeal  to  Heaven,  long  as  we  remain  upon 
earth.  The  one  is  the  cry  of  Want ;  and  tho  other  of 
Guilt.  In  the  petition  which  precedes  this,  we  ap- 
proach the  All-sustaining  Sovereign  as  His  needy  pen- 
sioners, and  ask  the  day's  provender.  But  in  that 
which  forms  now  our  text,  we  confess  ourselves  to  be 
as  well  offenders  as  dependants,  and  culprits,  who  come 
deprecating  the  wrath  and  imploring  the  clemency  of 
our  Judge.  And  if  the  body  need  its  daily  recruital 
and  supply  of  food,  the  soul,  whilst  it  shall  be  pre- 
served within  that  body,  and  whilst  yet  inhabiting  the 
earth,  requires  quite  as  much  its  constant  renewals 
of  pardon.  Like  the  prodigal  eyeing  in  his  hunger 
and  his  shame  from  some  far  eminence  the  father's 
forsaken  roof,  we  come  not  merely  to  be  fed  but  to  be 
reconciled  ; — to  deplore  our  past  folly,  as  well  as  to  re- 
move the  present  necessity.  And  parental  as  is  the 
heart  of  our  merciful  God,  He  is  yet  unutterably  pure 


132 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 


and  inflexibly  just ;  and  He  is  and  must  remain  "  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth,"  who  cannot  bat  "  do  right," 
and   "  who  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty." 

Earnests  and  intimations  of  this  His  judicial  char- 
acter, and  of  the  equity  that  marks  all  his  administra- 
tion, are  strewn  over  the  daily  course  of  his  Provi- 
dence ;  and  furnish,  as  said  Bacon,  the  handwriting 
of  the  Divine  Nemesis  inscribed  along  the  world's 
highways,  and  he  who  runs  may  read.  But  there 
comes  a  day,  when  this  Justice  will  no  longer,  as  now, 
but  shoot  out  its  brief,  bright  sparks,  and  scintillate 
its  occasional  flashes  ;  but  when  it  will  flame  out  in 
full-orbed  radiance,  and  flood  Earth  and  Heaven.  In 
that  day  He  will  "  bring  every  work  into  judgment, 
with  every  secret  thing,  whether  it  be  good  or  evil." 
How  shall  /  and  how  shall  you  abide  that  dread  day 
of  account — the  day  to  which  all  days  preceding  it  are 
to  be  held  responsible,  and  when  all  the  liabilities  and 
debts,  and  arrears  of  a  race  morally  insolvent,  must  be 
met  in  the  final  and  tremendous  reckoning  ?  If  Eden, 
in  the  fresh  bloom  of  its  creation,  grew  dark  with  the 
frown  and  curse  of  God  in  the  day  of  the  Fall — if 
Sinai  trembled  and  flamed,  beneath  the  descending 
feet  of  the  Lawgiver  of  Israel,  even  whilst  He  was 
leading  the  chosen  tribes  from  bondage  to  their  long- 
promised  inheritance  in  Canaan — if  Calvary,  the  very 
place  of  Reconciliation,  for  hours  was  all  black  and 
horrid,  whilst  the  cry  of  an  agonizing  Redeemer 
through  the  thick  cloud  of  a  world's  guilt  went  up  to 
the  Father  forsaking  Him  ; — what  shall  the  scene  be, 
when — not  two  sinners  only,  as  Adam  and  Eve  in 


1  ECTURE    VI.  '  133 

Paradise,  but  tliey  and  all  the  ten  thousand  times  ten 
thousand  of  their  sinful  .progeny  with  them — not  the 
twelve  backsliding  Hebrew  tribes  alone,  as  in  the  Ara- 
bian desert,  but  all  the  kindreds  and  all  the  tribes  of 
earth,  of  all  climes,  of  all  creeds,  and  of  all  centuries, 
shall  gather  to  the  feet  of  the  Crucified,  and  find  Him 
not  as  once  on  the  Mercy-seat,  but  now  on  the  G-reat 
White  Throne  ?  Of  old,  he  was  seen  hanging  on  the 
cross,  that  altar  of  Propitiation,  where  the  blood  of  the 
victim  as  it  dropped,  cried  better  things  than  that  of 
Abel,  bespeaking  pardon  and  hope.  But  soon,  the 
whole  family  of  man,  and  all  the  fallen  angels,  their 
tempters  and  confederates  in  rebellion,  must  gather, 
from  earth,  and  sea,  and  Hell,  to  the  feet  once  nailed 
upon  the  accursed  tree,  but  now  planted  on  the  sap- 
phire pavement  of  the  judgment-seat, — the  heavenly 
Gabbatha.  Now  and  here,  the  Man  of  Sorrows  has 
come  as  the  God  of  Terrors ;  the  Redeemer  re-appears 
to  vindicate  his  holiness  and  punish  his  enemies ;  and 
they  cry  in  vain  to  hills  and  rocks  to  hide  them  from 
the  wrath  of  that  Lamb  whose  mercy  they  long 
mocked.  Once  revealed  as  the  Atoner,  but  scorned  in 
that  character,  He  now  returns  in  His  Second  Advent 
as  the  dread  Avenger,  from  whose  fiery  glance  Earth 
and  Heaven  flee  away,  and  there  is  found  no  place  for 
them.  Is  there  indeed  a  judgment,  and  am  I  to  wit- 
ness, and  share,  and  bide  it  ?  Is  there  the  shadow  of 
the  fragment  of  a  hope,  that  I,  sinner  as  I  am  may  be 
absolved  in  that  day  ?  Let  me  know  the  way  of  es- 
cape. Tell,  oh  tell  me  the  way  to  the  one  City  of  Refuge, 
Compared  with  that   dread  audit,  what  is  there  in 


134  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

Earth,  of  pain,  or  loss,  or  woe,  that  should  deserve  a 
thought  ?  There  is  a  Judgment.  Not  only  does 
Scripture  pledge  it  and  portray  it — Conscience  wit- 
nesses of  it,  and  Providence  foreshadows  it.  The  suf- 
ferings of  the  righteous  in  this  life,  long  unavenged, 
and  the  frequent  seeming  impunity  of  the  wicked,  re- 
quire it.  Aye — the  very  oaths  of  the  profane  invoke 
it.  Earth's  inequalities  need  to  be  there  remedied. 
Earth's  mysteries  await  on  that  day  their  long-ex- 
pected solution.  Earth's  iniquities  are  treasured  up 
for  that  day  of  inquisition.  Yes — Grod  must  judge, 
and  man  must  be  judged ;  and  all  the  quick  and  the 
dead,  the  small  and  the  great, — all  of  us,  from  the 
graves  of  the  wilderness  and  from  the  crowded  ceme- 
tery of  the  metropolis,  and  from  the  abysses  of  ocean — 
must  hear  the  rustling  leaves  of  the  book  of  doom,  and 
must  encounter  the  flaming  glance  of  those  pure  Om- 
niscient Eyes,  and  bide  the  adjudication  of  those  Infal- 
lible Lips ;  as  they  read  the  record  and  append  the 
sentence  that  wafts  us  to  unspeakable  bliss,  or  sinks 
us  to  irremediable  perdition.  For  what  purpose,  if 
these  things  be  so,  do  we  live  ?  To  eat  and  to  drink — 
to  win  power,  or  luxury,  or  fame — or  to  build,  or  to 
plant,  or  to  buy,  or  to  sell  ?  Oh,  no  !  Before  all  this, 
and  above  all  this,  we  live,  or  should  live,  to  ensure 
our  meeting  in  that  day  a  favorable  award, — to  secure 
the  Father's  welcome,  and  the  Saviour's  acknowledg- 
ment of  us,  as  the  blessed  ones  whose  iniquit'cs  are 
forgiven  and  whose  sins  are  covered. 

Yes,  we  need  of  Heaven  that  it  both  give  and  for- 
give.    For  if  it  but  feed  without  pardoning  and  renew- 


LECTURE     VI.  135 

ing  us,  then  our  daily  bread  is  but  fattening  us  for  the 
slaughter,  and  like  the  stalled  ox  we  go  but  to  meet 
the  descending  axe  ;  and  our  abundance  is  cursed,  like 
the  bursting  barns  of  the  rich  man  whom  G-od  de- 
scribed as  the  "  fool."  Was  it  not  a  magnificently 
tremendous  ceremony,  when,  of  old,  the  twelve  chosen 
tribes  were  parted  on  opposite  mountains ;  and  the  six 
on  Mount  Ebal  confronting  the  six  on  Mount  G-erizirn, 
there  went  thundering  over  the  qamp  and  the  valley, 
the  awful  response  against  the  transgressor  of  God's 
law,  "  Cursed  shalt  thou  be  in  the  city,  and  cursed 
shalt  thou  be  in  the  field,  cursed  shall  be  thy  basket 
and  thy  store,  and  cursed  shalt  thou  be  when  thou 
comest  in,  and  cursed  shalt  thou  be  when  thou  goest 
out  ?" 

Ebal  yet  stands,  in  the  Providence  and  Scripture  of 
God ;  and  the  curse  yet  resounds  thence  over  each 
unforgiven  man : — the  bread  between  his  teeth,  his 
daily  banquetings,  his  sleep  and  his  toil,  his  study  and 
his  pleasure,  his  home  and  his  kin — all  are  accursed. 
Like  the  food  of  the  murraurers  who  perished,  with 
the  quails  for  which  they  clamored  yet  unchewed,  we 
are,  if  impenitent  and  unpardoned,  but  feasting  to  fill 
our  dishonored  and  hopeless  places  in  Kibroth  Hatta- 
avah,  the  graves  of  Lust.  Like  Dives,  the  sumptuous 
fare  but  ushers  in  the  torment  of  the  parched  tongue, 
and  the  upward  dartings  of  the  quenchless  and  intol- 
erable burning.  Unpardoned,  our  prosperity  is  but 
like  the  glorying  of  Herod,  when  the  acclaim  of  the 
mob  was  yet  ringing  in  the  ears,  whilst  the  worms  of 
vengeance  were  fastening  on  the  heart ;  or,  like  the 


136  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

feastings  of  Belshazzar,  on  whose  drunken  re  veilings 
flashed  the  scymetar  of  the  Persian  slaughterer,  and 
Riot  lay  crushed  under  sudden  Doom.  Let  G-od  with- 
hold what  He  may  of  earthly  good — health,  knowledge, 
freedom,  and  honor ; — if  He  but  grant  the  pardon  of 
sins,  and  the  renewal  of  the  heart,  and  acceptance  in 
the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus — if  He  hut  forg-ive,  though 
He  give  not — then  all  earthly  losses  and  crosses,^ 
however  severe,  however  many,  however  long, — are  but 
the  brief  and  salutary  pain  inflicted  by  the  skilful  ocu- 
list as  he  couches  the  cataract — a  sharp  pang,  but  soon 
past,  and  letting  in  at  last,  on  the  sufferer's  eye,  the 
flood  of  new-born  day.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  my 
grovelling  and  covetous  heart  choose  Earth,  and  slight 
the  skies — if  I  virtually  say  to  G-od,  G-ive,  only  give, 
but  I  care  not  to  have  Thee  forgive — then,  all  my 
treasures,  and  raptures,  and  achievements  here,  are 
but  as  the  tuft  of  grass  which  the  ox  snatches  by  the 
road-side,  as  it  is  driven  unconsciously  to  the  sham- 
bles,— a  morsel  whose  sweetness  is  not  long  to  be  en- 
joyed, and  that  will  not  ward  off  the  fatal  death-stroke, 
or  lull  the  agonies  of  impending  dissolution.  With  an 
Alexander's  sway  and  an  Alexander's  fame  given  me, 
but  my  sins  not  through  Christ  forgiven  me,  better 
had  it  been  for  me  that  I  had  never  been  born. 

The  petition  of  our  text  is,  then,  a  most  momentous 
and  indispensable  accompaniment  of  that  which  pre- 
cedes it.  It  differs  from  the  forme",  in  asking  not 
merely  the  da7/^s  supply,  but  in  being  left  indefinite ; 
so  as  to  imply,  not  only  that  we  ask  of  G-od  the  can- 
celment  of  the  c?a^'s  sins,  but  of  all  the  past  sins  of 


LECTURE     VI.  137 

the  lifetime  as  well.  And  it  differs  from  it,  also,  in 
containing  a  pledge,  that  we  deal  mercifully  with  our 
fellow-man,  in  our  asking  God  to  deal  mercifully  with 
us.  This  pledge  seems  intended  to  serve  as  a  contin- 
ual test,  probing  the  daily  state  of  our  own  hearts,  and 
ascertaining  whether,  in  the  feelings  there  cherished 
toward  our  fellow-mortals  and  fellow-sinners,  we  aro 
"the  merciful  who  shall  obtain  mercy."  But  the 
whole  current  of  the  New  Testament  is  against  con- 
sidering this,  as  a  plea  with  Grod ;  or  regarding  our 
gentleness,  as  in  itself  constituting  a  title  to  Divine  favor. 
It  is  rather  a  test  and  evidence  of  the  favor  received 
from  God.    The  two  divisions  of  the  sentence  are,  then, 

I.  The  REQUEST  :   "  Forgive  us  our  debts." 

II.  The  TEST  :   "  As  we  forgive  our  debtors." 

May  God's  own  Spirit  work,  in  our  hearts,  the  filial 
contrition  and  the  fraternal  compassion,  which  this 
brief  sentence  so  wondrously  blends.  For,  if  left  to 
our  own  proud  blindness,  how  loth  are  we  to  acknowl- 
edge our  guiltiness  before  God,  and  to  sue  in  his 
courts  for  the  boon  of  pardon,  in  the  deep  sense  of  our 
spiritual  poverty  and  moral  unworthiness.  There 
was,  in  the  early  ages  of  the  Christian  era,  a  lying 
magician  and  philosopher,  Apollonius  of  Tyanea, 
whom  some  of  the  ancients  tried  to  set  up  as  a  rival, 
in  wisdom  and  might  and  miracles,  with  our  blessed 
Saviour.  One  of  the  speeches  attributed  to  this 
Apollonius  by  his  biographer  is,  "  O  ye  gods,  give  me 
my  dues^*      Instead  of  holding  himself  indebted  to 

*  Tlioluck's  Exposition  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Biblical  Cabinet,  vol.  II.  p.  197. 


138 


THE     LORD'S     PRAVER, 


Heaven,  he  regarded  Heaven  as  debtor  to  him,  for 
what  he  supposed  his  blamelessness  and  eminent 
virtue.  There  bleated  out  the  proud  and  impious 
folly  of  the  unrenev/ed  heart.  But,  as  Coleridge 
beautifully  said,  in  the  later  and  more  christian  years 
of  his  life,  the  men  who  talk  of  earning  Heaven  by 
their  own  merits,  might  better  begin  by  earning 
Earth.  Who  of  us  really  has  deserved  what  he  is 
daily  enjoying  of  good,  even  chequered  as  that  good 
may  be,  in  this  sublunary  state,  with  mingling  sorrow 
and  joy  ?  But,  surely,  in  our  more  sober  and  medita- 
tive hours,  even  the  unregenerate  feel,  more  or  less 
distinctly,  their  own  guiltiness.  This  it  is  that  makes 
solitude  dreadful,  and  diversion  so  necessary,  in  order 
to  kill  time  and  drown  thought.  This  it  is,  that 
clothes  death  with  terrors,  and  renders  the  image  of  a 
God, — holy  and  the  hater  of  sin, — so  irksome  and 
formidable  an  idea  to  us.  Even  the  men  who  spend 
all  their  earthly  days  in  the  City  of  Destruction,  and 
never  think  of  setting  out  on  pilgrimage  towards  the 
Celestial  City,  yet  cannot  escape,  in  their  daily  paths, 
and  in  their  rambles  of  business  or  amusement,  the 
miring  of  their  weary  feet  at  times  in  the  thick  clay 
of  the  Slough  of  Despond.  The  most  worldly  and  the 
most  giddy, — the  covetous,  heaping  up  gold,  and  the 
gay,  flitting  from  one  scene  of  fashionable  amusement 
to  another,  find  Care  dogging  their  steps,  and  em- 
bittering their  goblet ;  and  cannot  shut  out  the  occa- 
sional thought  of  sin  and  woe — cannot  avoid  cast- 
ing, at  some  moment,  a  downward  glance  into  the 
abysms  of  inward  unworthiness,  and  snatching  though 


LECTURE     VI.  139 

it  be  avertedly,  upward  glimpses  of  the  coming  judg- 
ment. The  lightning  of  the  storm  without  sometimes 
pales,  in  their  experience,  the  torches  of  the  revel 
within.  The  wide  existence  of  sacrifices  in  the  hea- 
then world,  and  the  practice  of  the  confession  of  sins 
and  the  deprecation  of  wrath,  as  found  in  all  ages  of 
the  world's  history,  and  in  all  tribes  of  the  earth's  in- 
habitants, point  most  significantly  to  one  and  the 
same  great  plague  of  the  human  heart, — the  guilt, 
more  or  less  clearly  felt  as  residing  in  man's  nature, 
and  meriting  the  wrath  of  a  just  G-od. 

But  how  do  men  strive  to  lessen  this  irksome,  yet 
inevitable,  consciousness,  by  vain  pleas  and  extenua- 
tions and  criminations  of  their  fellows,  as  these  last 
have  been  their  tempters,  abettors,  and  accomplices. 
How  do  they  seek  to  obliterate  the  record  against 
them  by  flattering,  and  at  times  by  bribing  Heaven. 
But  can  our  richest  gifts  buy  the  All-rich,  and  our 
most  lavish  flatteries  cheat  the  All- wise  Grod  ?  He, 
who  closed  with  a  flaming  sword  the  gates  of  Eden, 
against  our  first  parents  when  they  had  first  sinned, 
will  He  unbar  the  better  gates  of  the  higher  Paradise 
to  us,  habitual  and  life-long  transgressors, — merely 
because  of  our  fluent  vows  and  our  costly  oblations  ? 
He  is  the  God  of  Sinai.  Do  its  forked  lightnings 
gleam  hope  into  the  guilty  heart  ?  His  summons 
wrapt  the  guilty  world  of  old,  in  the  watery  veil  of 
the  Deluge,  wiping  its  guilty  tenants  out  of  life.  His 
voice,  in  after  times,  called  down  upon  Gomorrah  the 
fiery  rain ;  and,  in  yet  later  days,  gave  up  His  own 
Jerusalem  to  the  Chaldean  first,  and  to  the  Roman 


140  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

last,  to  be  trodden  down  by  the  Gentiles.  All  this 
He  did  because  of  sin.  And  that  same  voice  is  pledged 
to  wrap  in  a  veil  of  flame,  and  to  embathe  in  a  second 
and  consuming  deluge  of  wrath,  the  world  in  its  later 
and  doting  days  of  yet  more  aggravated  and  inexcus 
able  iniquity.  How  can  such  a  God  be  appeased,  so 
that  He  shall  efface  the  record  of  our  moral  indebted- 
ness ?  The  curse,  in  Zechariah's  vision,  was  seen  fly- 
ing in  mid-heaven,  and  entering  the  house  of  the 
sinner.  Has  it  not  its  flight  now,  and  its  entrance 
into  our  homes  and  our  hearts ; — into  our  bodily  tab- 
ernacle and  the  inner  spiritual  shrine  of  our  con- 
sciences ?  Has  not  death  passed  upon  all  meri  because 
that  all  have  sinned  ?  If  any  man  say  he  have  no 
sin,  he  deceiveth  himself,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  him. 
Not  in  bribes,  or  vows,  or  solemn  words,  or  flowing 
tears,  or  richest  victims  of  our  providing,  may  we 
dare  to  hope.  The  blood  of  Christ  alone  can  cancel 
the  dark  catalogue  of  transgression.  He  who  uttered 
our  text,  long  ere  He  uttered  it,  had  been  announced 
by  his  Forerunner,  John  the  Baptist,  as  the  Lamb  op 
God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world.  Though 
this  prayer,  then,  did  not  fully  enunciate  the  truth, 
that  He  was.  Himself,  the  channel ;  yet,  like  the  sac- 
rifices of  the  Old  Testament,  both  in  patriarchal  and 
Levitical  times,  this  prayer  presupposed  and  intimated 
such  atonement  as  the  basis  that  made  forgiveness 
possible.  A  holy  God  could  not  revoke  His  wise  and 
good  law.  An  adequate  compensation,  and  a  suffi- 
cient righteousness,  must  be  provided.  God  the  Son, 
could  furnish  what  no  meaner  victim  might  supply. 


LECTURE     VI.  141 

And  all  hope  of  pardon,  here  or  hereafter, — all  idea 
of  God's  favor  along  the  earthly  pathway,  and  God's 
acceptance  of  us  in  the  eternal  world, — grew  out  of 
that  one  oblation,  promised,  in  the  Seed  of  the  Wo- 
man, to  the  inmates  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  presented 
on  Golgotha,  and  extolled  and  adored  in  the  endless 
anthems  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  He  cancelled  the 
handwriting  of  ordinances  that  was  against  us,  nailing 
it  to  his  cross.  And  the  very  prayer,  that  as  the 
Prophet  of  his  Church  he  taught,  must  be  virtually 
the  supplement  following  his  own  one  Sacrifice,  and  be 
seconded  before  the  Throne  by  His  owa  perpetual  In- 
tercession, as  the  High  Priest  of  that  Church. 

Legalism  was  not  the  method  of  salvation  in  the 
Old  Testament.  It  is  not  the  teaching  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  more  than  it  is  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans, which  so  lays  the  axe  at  the  root  of  all  human 
merit  and  of  all  mortal  righteousness.  In  the  antedilu- 
vian home  of  godly  Enoch — under  the  curtains  of  the 
Tabernacle, — within  the  veil  of  the  Temple — in  the  an- 
cient synagogue  and  in  the  modern  sanctuary,  all  hope 
of  effectual  Prayer  and  availing  Pardon  abjured  Right- 
eousness by  the  Law.  As  little  is  it  taught  in  the 
Psalms  of  David,  as  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews; 
as  little  in  Leviticus,  as  in  the  book  of  the  Revelation 
of  John.  The  earlier  dispensations  were  based  on  pro- 
phecies and  types  of  the  cross ;  as  the  later  dispensation 
clusters  around  that  cross,  in  its  actual  and  antitypicai 
reality,  now  reared  on  high  ;  propitiating  Heaven,  and 
quelling  Hell,  and  ransoming  Earth.  Our  Saviour 
looked,  with  presaging  glance,  on  the  scene  beneath  tha 


14?  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

olive-trees  of  Gethsemane,  and  into  the  open  tomb  of 
Joseph's  garden,  even  as  He  was  framing  for  us  this 
petition.  He  saw,  in  His  own  dread  Passion,  the  one 
plea  for  our  pardon;  in  His  own  w^eltering  blood  and 
in  His  own  purchased  descent  of  the  Spirit,  the  laver 
of  our  sin,  and  the  satisfaction  of  our  debt,  and  the  re- 
moval of  our  corruption. 

Now  our  forgetfulness  of  our  sin  does  not  obliterate 
or  annul  it.  Guilt  is  here  expressly  called  our  debt; 
perchance  to  guard  us  against  that  very  neglect  and 
oblivion.  Just  as  a  debt  to  our  fellow- citizen  becomes 
only  the  more  large  in  its  amount,  and  the  more  ruinous 
in  its  enforcement,  by  our  want  of  memory  and  exact- 
ness as  to  meeting  it — just  as  the  pecuniary  burden  of 
debt  is  easily  contracted,  and  the  money  which  it  won  is 
often  frivolously  wasted,  on  trifles  and  toys  of  transient 
value, — so  we  sin  easily,  to  reckon  for  our  sin  one  day 
most  surely  and  most  sorely.  In  our  times,  the  can- 
cerous mortgage,  left  undischarged,  gradually  grows 
until  it  eats  out  the  entire  heritage,  and  forfeits  for  the 
reckless  tenant  the  home  of  his  childhood,  and  poisons 
and  kills  often  the  whole  energy  and  enterprise  and 
hopefulness  of  the  unhappy  debtor.  And,  of  old,  debt 
perilled  not  merely  the  property,  but  the  liberty,  and 
in  Roman  law  the  very  life  of  the  man  indebted. 
Even  thus,  our  guilt,  unconfessed,  unrepented,  and 
unforgiven,  left  slowly  to  grow  with  growing  years, 
and  growing  worldliness  and  growing  unbelief,  is 
mortgaging  our  happiness,  our  spiritual  freedom, 
and  our  eternal  life;  and  will  soon,  "  eating  as  doth  a 
canker,"  rob  us  of  all  hope  of  Heaven,  and  sell  us  tc 


LECTURE     VI.  143 

that  land  of  'exile  and  durance,  whose  wretched  dwel- 
lers hear  no  trump  of  Jubilee  inviting  them  back  to 
the  forfeited  inheritance — forfeited  once  and  forfeited 
forever.  Whilst  "  we  are  in  the  way,"  then,  we  do 
well  to  conciliate  "  our  adversary,"  ere  Justice  "  de- 
liver us  to  the  Judge,"  and  the  Judge  consign  us  to 
the  prison-house  of  endless  despair  ; — that  prison  whose 
bolts  once  drawn  to  enclose  us,  rust,  never  to  be  drawn 
back,  and  the  hinges  of  whose  gates  once  closed  on  the 
guilty,  never  turn  more  to  permit  their  egress  to  Hope 
and  Peace  and  Heaven. 

We  must  recognize  and  confess  our  sin.  And  the 
devout  mind,  after  every  preceding  petition  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  prepares  to  drop  in  the  utterance  of  the 
petition  now  before  us,  as  into  the  dust  of  lowliest  self- 
abasement.  Is  He  our  Father  ?  this  fatherhood  has 
been  spurned  by  His  ingrate  children.  Is  He  in 
Heaven,  our  native  home  and  our  proper  end  ?  We 
have  lived,  as  if  we  had  sprung  from  Earth,  and  were 
ripening  only  for  Hell.  His  Name,  dread  and  pure, 
is  it  worthy,  always  and  by  all,  to  be  hallowed  ?  How 
have  our  daring  levity  and  defiance  profaned  it ;  and 
trailed  its  sacred  honors,  as  in  the  mire  of  our  scorn 
and  our  filth ;  and  hung  what  is  the  dread  blazonry  uf 
Heaven  over  deeds  and  tempers  sprung  of  the  pit.  Is 
His  kingdom  to  be  hailed  and  extended  ?  How  have 
we  played,  toward  its  glories  and  authority,  the  part 
of  the  rebel  and  the  traitor.  Is  His  will  deserving  of 
all  obedience  and  study  and  conformity  ?  How  have 
we  preferred  to  it  our  own  will,  and  the  will  of  tha 
Murderer  and  Deceiver,  Satan.     Gives  He  still,  kind 


144  THE     lord's     prayer. 

and  long-suffering,  our  daily  bread  ?  How  have  wiJ 
"  crammed  and  blasphemed  our  Feeder." 

To  subdue  this  sin,  will  it  be  sufficient  to  secure 
forgiveness  for  the  past  ?  Not — unless  we  staunch  the 
fountain  of  evil,  and  provide  against  its  outgushings 
for  the  future.  To  this  later  work  the  succeeding  pe- 
titions of  the  prayer  refer.  When  Jesus  came  down  to 
meet  our  debt,  and  to  justify  us  by  his  righteousness  and 
death.  He  also  made  provision  and  purchase  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  renew  and  to  sanctify.  "When  we  turn 
in  true  faith  to  His  atonement,  we  do  also  experience 
in  the- heart  a  renewing  change  that  destroys  the  do- 
minion and  power  of  sin.  Our  past  nonconformity  to 
the  Divine  Law  is  pardoned  by  His  righteousness  ;  and 
our  future  and  growing  conformity  to  that  law  is  se- 
cured by  the  new  nature  which  the  Spirit  imparts  and 
sustains,  through  His  regenerating  and  hallowing  en- 
ergy. In  conversion,  Christ  reveals  himself  to  your 
believing  soul,  not  only  as  the  Moses  who  tears  you 
from  the  Egyptian  prison,  but  as  the  Joshua  who  in- 
stals  you  in  the  promised  Canaan.  The  law,  shorn 
to  you  of  its  blighting  curse  (as  it  touched  in  your 
stead  the  atoning  Lamb,  and  discharged  on  him  its 
fatal  thunderbolt),  sends  yet  its  holy  electricity  into 
your  renewed  and  grateful  heart.  That  law  is  trans- 
ferred from  the  stony  and  outer  tables  hewn  from  Si- 
nai's cliffs,  where  it  condemned  you,  to  the  inner  and 
fleshly  table  of  your  own  softened  heart,  where  it  in- 
structs and  aids  to  sanctify  you. 

To  urge  this  sanctifying  work,  to  ascertain  day  by 
day  our  spiritual  course,  as  the  mariner,  day  by  day, 


LECTURE     V  145 

takes  his  observation,  and  calculates  the  place  of  his 
ship  and  the  rate  of  his  voyage, — so  you  examine 
yourself,  whether  in  your  spiritual  condition  are  to  be 
found  the  traces  and  evidences  of  sin  forgiven. 

11.  We  thus  reach  the  second  division  of  our  sub- 
ject The  TEST — "  As  WE  forgive  our  debtors."  If 
reconciled  to  Grod,  you  are  assimilated  to  Him.  As 
He  is  Love,  you  learn  in  gratitude  to  Him,  to  love 
your  fellow-sinner.  In  the  unregenerate  state,  the 
same  Fall,  dread  and  disastrous,  which  tore  Human 
Nature  and  Human  Society,  loose  from  God,  shivered 
it  into  a  thousand  separate  and  dissociated  fragments. 
Men,  parted  from  Heaven,  became  selfishly  parted 
from  each  other.  The  first  human  pair  in  Eden  com- 
menced, as  sinners,  an  interchange  of  selfish  crimina- 
tions. And  even  in  converted  men,  just  as  sin  regains 
its  old  power  to  delude  them,  its  divisive  tendencies 
towards  their  fellow-men  reappear.  AVhen  David  had 
himself  wrought  folly  in  Israel  and  sinned  heinously 
against  the  God  of  Israel,  he  became,  unconsciously  to 
himself,  in  the  very  eclipse  of  the  Divine  favor,  more 
prompt  and  harsh  in  his  disparagement  of  others.  In 
his  days  of  early  piety,  when  a  shepherd  lad,  had  he 
heard  Nathan's  parable,  and  the  incident  it  so  touch- 
ingly  recited,  he  would  doubtless  have  justly  and 
strongly  censured  the  rich  man's  covetous  greed,  and 
his  rapacious  cruelty  towards  his  poor  neighbor ;  but, 
perhaps,  he  would  then  have  hardly  said,  as  he  did  in 
the  days  of  his  own  obdurate  profligacy,  when  Uriah's 
blood  was  not  dry  on  his  hand,  "  The  man  that  hath 
done  this  thing — robbed,  forsooth,  the  cottager  of  his 

7 


146  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

little  pet  lamb — shall  surely  die'"' — for  sin,  as  indulged 
within  ourselves  against  G-od,  makes  us  harsh — need- 
lessly and  intolerantly  harsh  in  the  feeling  we  cherish, 
against  the  sin  of  man  towards  man.  As  poor  Burns 
so  feelingly  said  of  one  of  his  own  besetting  iniquities, 
it  may  be  asserted  of  all  transgression,  that  it 

"  Hardens  all  "within 
And  petrifies  the  feeling." 

Now,  to  afford  us  a  daily  test  against  this  returning 
tendency  to  selfishness,  and  to  proud  and  unforgiving 
revenge, — to  aid  us,  as  it  we^e,  in  detecting  the  re- 
current symptoms  of  the  malady  which  He,  as  the  great 
Physician,  has  begun  to  heal  in  each  true  penitent, 
He  calls  us  to  a  daily  and  domestic  scrutiny.  We  do 
not  show  a  forgiving  and  generous  spirit,  in  order  that 
thus  we  may  earn  Heaven  ;  but  we  are  warned  that 
the  indulgence  of  a  contrary  spirit  necessarily  forfeits 
Heaven.  We  test  our  spiritual  condition,  not  by  ask- 
ing how  our  feelings  are  towards  the  dead — to  our 
best  friends — or  towards  angels.  The  Pharisees  could 
praise  dead  saints,  and  canonize  prophets,  when  once 
safe  and  mute  in  their  graves.  But  we  ask.  What  are 
my  feelings  towards  the  living  prophets  and  witnesses 
of  Heaven — to  my  living  neighbor,  and  rival,  and  en- 
emy ?  When  our  Saviour  healed  the  sick  man  of  his 
long  and  sore  infirmity,  and  bade  him  take  up  his  bed 
and  walJc ;  the  poor  man's  lifting  of  his  couch  and 
flinging  its  light  weight  on  his  rejoicing  shoulders, 
was  not  the  means  of  his  cure,  or  the  condition  of  hia 


LECTURE  vr.  147 

healing  Tt  was  the  evidence,  tangible  and  visible  to 
himsell  and  others,  in  the  streets  along  which  he 
passed,  and  in  the  home  he  re-entered,  that  he  had  en- 
countered a  great  Prophet,  and  had  received  a  miracu- 
lous healing.  And  so,  when  the  leper,  purged  of  his 
leprosy,  was  bidden  to  go  and  show  himself  to  the 
priest,  as  he  bared  the  skin  now  clear  and  white  to  the 
glance  of  the  Levite,  he  was  not  fulfilling  a  condition 
of  the  cure,  but  receiving  an  authentication,  a  publio 
and  unimpeachable  and  official  endorsement  of  it. 

And  even  thvis  is  it,  in  this  prayer.  It  is  not  our 
placability  that' purchases  for  us  remission.  Had  the 
imperturbable  countenance  which  Talleyrand  was  ac- 
customed to  wear,  even  when  insulted,  been  the  index 
of  as  imperturbable  a  soul,  free  from  all  malicious  re- 
membrances, it  would  not  in  itself  have  merited  eter- 
nal blessedness.  But  G-od  would  furnish,  as  it  were, 
in  the  forgiving  spirit  of  His  people,  a  portable  cru- 
cible, so  to  speak,  in  which  to  try  and  purge  daily  the 
fine  gold  of  our  own  heavenly  hopes.  To  arm  us 
against  the  selfishness  which  so  clings  to  us,  this  peti- 
tion, like  all  those  preceding  it,  is  not  for  the  solitary 
suppliant.  He  asks  not  for  himself,  though  like  the 
prophet's  penitents  he  "mourns  apart f  but  he  im- 
plores in  unison  and  sympathy  with  the  absent.  He 
says  not.  Forgive  me,  but  forgive  us.  And  then  going 
beyond  all  the  other  petitions,  he  makes  reference  not 
to  the  absent  only,  but  to  the  alienated — the  injurious 
— the  hostile.  When  Christianity  was  hunted  in  its 
early  days  to  the  catacombs,  and  dragged  thence  to 
the  lions  of  the  amphitheatre,   glorious    as    were    its 


148  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

other  evidences  of  a  Divine  origin  and  a  heavenward 
mission,  what  was  a  more  beautiful  seal  of  its  super- 
human spirit  than  this, — that  the  defamed,  and  de- 
spoiled, and  tormented  disciple,  could  forgive  and  lova 
the  cruel  and  hardened  judge,  who  insulted  and  tor- 
tured him,  and  spend,  like  Stephen,  his  dying  breath, 
in  prayer  for  the  multitude  who  were  howling  for  his 
blood  ?  And,  many  and  resplendent  as  were  the 
seals  of  our  Lord's  Sonship  and  Deity, — in  the  prophe- 
cies that  heralded,  and  the  miracles  that  attended 
Him, — yet  even,  amid  all  the  other  stupendous  won- 
ders of  the  Crucifixion,  was  not  that  a  moral  miracle 
of  surpassing  loveliness,  when  the  meek  Nazarene 
lifted  to  Heaven,  for  the  taunting,  cursing  rabble 
that  murdered  Him,  the  cry,  "  Father,  forgive  them. 
They  know  not  what  they  do  !" 

2  But  does  this  require  of  man  to  forego  all  rights 
and  the  duties  which  society  owes  him  of  protection 
from  evil-doers  ?  Paul  thought  not  so ;  when  he 
required  the  Philippian  magistrates  and  the  Roman 
captain  at  Jerusalem,  to  pay  him  the  due  debt  of  re- 
gard for  his  citizenship  in  the  Imperial  city.  It  does 
not  include,  on  our  part,  the  utter  impunity  of  offences 
against  the  public  security.  The  excellent  Sir  Mat- 
thew Hale,  on  the  judgment-seat,  was  not  required  by 
his  piety  to  let  a  culprit  go  unscathed  of  the  just  law 
of  the  land.  Or  had  a  Grod-fearing  Puritan  detected 
the  Romish  conspirator,  Guy  Faux,  in  his  murderous 
preparations  in  the  vaults  of  the  British  Parliament 
House,  and  had  the  traitor  professed  penitence,  and 
implored  pardon  and  oblivioj?  for  his  fault,  the   Chris* 


liECTURE     VI.  14ft 

tian  who  had  surprised  the  plotter  would  not,  by  this 
petition,  be  required  or  even  permitted  to  conceal  the 
sin.  Or,  had  a  Christian  soldier  surprised  the  traitor 
Arnold,  on  his  passage  to  the  enemy  with  a  plan  in  his 
hand  of  the  fortress  he  proposed  to  betray,  and  had  the 
betrayer  feigned  repentance  and  besought  silence, 
neither  patriotism  nor  religion  would  have  permitted 
Uiat  Christian  soldier  to  concede  the  request.  Yet,  as 
to  private  offmces,  not  involving  public  wrongs,  we 
are  to  cherish  a  'id  show  a  tender  and  generous  spirit ; 
forgiving,  not  as  '-he  Jewish  Rabbles  taught — merely 
for  three  times,  and  then  ceasing — but  even  till  seventy 
times  seven,  him  who  turns  again  saying,  I  repent. 
The  world  may  taunt  the  lowly  and  gentle  temper 
thus  shown,  as  a  recent  German  sceptic  has  done,  call- 
ing the  patience  of  the  gospel  a  doglike  virtue,  the 
grace  of  a  beaten  hound  ;  but  how  noble  and  godlike 
is  it  thus  to  pass  by  a  transgression.  And  how  happy 
is  such  a  spirit.  The  man  thus  encased,  in  true  fra- 
ternal love  of  his  kind,  and  cherishing  this  filial  rever- 
ence and  gratitude  for  his  God,  has,  to  use  the  apostle's 
language,  "  his  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the 
gospel  of  peace."  He  is  in  peace,  armed  and  arrayed 
to  trample  down,  unfelt,  the  briers  that  would  long 
and  poisonously  rankle  in  the  unregenerate  heart ;  and 
life's  thorny  and  uneven  path  becomes  less  dreadful — 
a  son  of  peace,  he  inherits  for  himself  the  calm,  meek 
benediction  he  invokes  upon  others. 

8.  But  how  opposite  is  all  this  to  the  spirit  of  re- 
venge,  that,  as  cultivated  in  the  world,  has  shaped  the 
code  of  the  duellist.     There  are  those  who  seem  to  keep 


150  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

vengeance  as  a  growing  hoard  against  some  real  ot 
fancied  sliglit  or  wrong,  until  the  fitting  hour  arrives, 
and  then  the  avalanche  rolls  to  bury,  if  possible,  its 
victim.  There  are  others  who  say  sullenly,  that  they 
forgive  but  cannot  forget.  Now,  God,  in  His  prom- 
ises of  forgiveness,  illustrates  the  pardon  by  describing 
it  as  an  oblivion  of  the  sin,  or  a  blotting  of  it  out,  and 
a  casting  it  behind  Him,  a  flinging  it  into  the  sea, 
to  appear  no  more.  Such  instead  of  burying  their 
wrongs,  as  they  profess  to  do,  may  be  said  to  embalm 
them  ;  and  a  busy  and  eager  memory  keeps  unbroken 
all  the  lineaments  of  the  injury  they  have  received. 

There  are  others,  who  boast  that  they  never  forget 
either  an  injury  or  a  kindness.  They  forget  surely 
one  kindness  at  least, — and  that  the  greatest  one  man 
has  ever  received, — the  Redeemer  who  died  to  efface 
their  guilt  and  to  win  their  pardon ;  and  who,  with 
the  free  boon  of  forgiven  sin,  bequeathed  to  them  as 
his  loving  legacy,  "  Tolerance  and  unrevenging  Love" 
toward  their  fellow-debtors.  "  Freely  ye  have  re- 
ceived, freely  give."  One  who  had  studied  well  that 
legacy  and  its  lesson,  a  much  enduring  martyr  and 
apostle,  had  learned  of  it  another  spirit.  And  though 
the  Grreek  scorned,  and  the  Jew  hated  him,  yet  view- 
ing the  free  cancelment  of  all  his  debt  of  sin  by 
Christ's  redeeming  cross,  and  by  Christ's  ineffable  and 
inexhaustible  Love,  he  counted  himself,  and  gladly 
counted  himself,  henceforth  "  a  debtor  to  Jew  and  tc 
Greek,  to  Barbarian  and  to  Scythian,  and  to  bond  and 
to  free."  Ignorance  might  jeer,  and  Stupidity  gaze, 
and    Malice   hunt,   and    Falsehood    blacken ;    but    he 


LECTURE     VI.  15> 

looked  to  the  Suiferer  on  Calvary,  and  with  eyes  suf- 
fused with  tears  of  gratitude  and  joy,  he  looked  around 
on  Malice,  and  Stupidity,  and  Falsehood,  and  Igno- 
rance, with  a  serene  pity,  and  on  those  who  cherished 
them,  with  a  brother's  vigilant  compassion,  and  a 
Christian's  outgushing  tenderness. 

Now  contrast,  if  you  will,  the  apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, this  warrior  of  the  Grospel,  with  the  heroes  of 
modern  romance  and  poesy, — fiery  and  implacable, 
nursing  a  grudge  through  a  lifetime,  and  counting  re- 
venge the  sternest  of  duties  and  the  sweetest  of  luxu- 
ries. Of  some  of  them,  it  may  be  said,  that  the 
Decalogue  of  God  has  been  displaced  to  give  room  for 
a  Duologue — and  the  only  two  principles  of  life  which 
they  seem  to  recognize,  as  of  permanent  obligation,  are 
a  ruthless  Hatred  and  a  reckless  Licentiousness.  And, 
in  some,  the  Hatred  seems  to  be  not  so  much  origi- 
nated from  wrong  which  they  have  endured^  as  from 
wrong-  they  have  injlicted.  It  is  yet  true,  as  an  old 
Roman  annalist  remarked  in  his  day,  that  the  worst 
of  hate  is  that  cherished  by  the  wrong-doer  to  his 
victim. 

"Forgiveness  to  the  injured  does  belong, 
But  they  need  pardon  who  conamit  the  wrong.  "* 

But  let  us  all  remember,  that,  by  Heaven's  just 
and  immutable  decree,  the  unforgiving  are  the  un- 
forgiven.  And  we  need  all,  and  always,  while  on 
earth,  the  fresh  and  the  free  forgiveness  of  God.  The 
gospel  is  a  message  of  repentance  and  of  the  remission 

*  Dryden. 


152  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

of  sins.  Now,  if, — my  fellow-heir  of  immortaiit;;y, 
speeding  with  me  to  the  feet  of  the  Judge, — if  yoa 
will  not  come  to  the  gospel  on  the  terms  which  it 
states — if  you  cling  to  a  self-righteousness  that  asks 
no  pardon — if  your  views  of  human  dignity  and  merit 
spurn  the  doctrines  of  G-race — we  beseech  you  to  pon- 
der the  nature  and  bearings  of  your  s)r:>t,em,  A  sys- 
tem that  claims  Heaven  on  the  basis  of  Merit,  if  it 
could  be  substantiated,  would  make  the  Bible, — in  its 
self- renouncing  doctrines,  and  in  its  self-abasing  de- 
mands,— into  a  libel  on  Human  Nature  ;  and  would 
prove  the  God  who  is  its  author  and  utterer  false, 
slanderous,  and  boastful, — slanderous,  because  He 
has  impeached  the  archangel  man  as  a  revolter  and  a 
criminal — boastful,  because  He  claims  gratitude  and 
homage  in  that  Bible  for  a  salvation  which,  if  your 
system  be  true,  the  race  does  not  need,  and  ought  to 
spurn  as  needless  and  insulting.  Yes,  he  who  does 
not,  as  a  penitent,  believe  in  Jesus,  and  seek  forgive- 
ness in  His  Name,  makes  G-od  a  liar.  So  says  the 
Bible.  Such  is  the  contrariety  between  you  and  Scrip- 
ture. "Will  you  venture  to  uphold  the  contradiction, 
when  the  Redeemer  returns — and  the  books  are  opened 
— and  the  Judgment  begins  ? 

Have  you,  on  the  contrary,  full  conviction  that  the 
Fall  is  no  mere  allegory  or  obsolete  myth,  but  a  lamen- 
table and  permanent  verity,  of  which  your  own  con- 
sciousness and  inward  experience  furnish  fresh  evi- 
dence ?  Do  you,  smitten  by  the  edge  of  God's  broad, 
keen  law,  find  all  hope  of  justification  from  your  own 
righteousness  slain  within  you  ?     Do  you  feel  the  worth 


LECTURE     VI.  l5'3 

of  a  better  and  imputed  righteousness,  as  presented 
in  the  sacrifice  and  merits  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  Be  not 
contented  without  the  witness  of  the  Scripture  and 
the  witness  of  the  Spirit,  to  your  own  interest  in  the 
pardon  which  Christ  bought,  and  your  acceptance  of  the 
"  everlasting  rigiiteousness,"  which  he  freely  proffers. 
Ask,  in  daily  scrutiny  of  your  own  heart  and  way, 
and  in  daily  study  of  God's  living  Oracles,  and  in  daily 
resort  to  the  Living  High  Priest,  upon  the  open  Mercy 
Seat,  the  daily  and  home-felt  renewal  of  your  blessed- 
ness, as  the  man  to  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not  in- 
iquity. Walking  continually  beside  the  crumbling 
edge  of  the  grave,  and  liable,  at  any  moment,  to  be 
rapt  by  Death  into  the  state  eternal  and  unchange- 
able, "  pray  without  ceasing,"  to  have  the  abiding 
seals  of  the  Divine  Mercy  to  your  own  soul,  and  this 
seal,  amongst  others, — your  habitual  meekness  and 
overcoming  mercifulness  towards  your  fellow-man. 
7* 


^*M  M  m  lint  inta  temptntiflu/' 


LECTURE  Vll. 

"i^H^  \ut  n  not  intn  tEmptalinn." 

Mattheav,  VI.  is. 

The  language  of  the  petition  preceding  this  is  that 
of  confessed  guiltiness.  The  request  now  before  us 
is  that  of  conscious  weakness,  imploring  help  against 
itself  and  its  many  foes,  lest  guilt  return  and  remain 
upon  us.  When  we  cry  to  G-od  "  Forgive  us,"  we 
put  ourselves  in  the  place,  and  avow  the  feelings  of 
the  Prodigal  restored.  From  the  father's  board  we 
look  back  to  our  riot  and  exile,  and  fluttering  rags, 
and  gnawing  hunger,  as  we  stood  beside  the  trough 
amid  the  husks,  around  which  crowded  a  noisy,  jost- 
ling herd  of  unclean  beasts.  When  we  go  on,  to  im- 
plore of  Him  that  He  should  "  lead  us  not  into  temp- 
tation,^^ we  entreat  that  we  may  not  be  abandoned, 
lest  we  become  the  Prodigal  Relapsed  —  apostates, 
whose  conscience  has  only  become  vitrified  by  the 
Truth  and  the  Grace,  by  which  it  should  have  been 
melted.  True  penitence  for  the  follies  of  the  past, 
implies  a  keen  vigilance  against  the  snares  of  the 
FUTURE.     The  rescued  prisoner  dreads  the  return  and 


158 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 


plottings,  and  ambushments,  and  surprises  of  his  old 
captors.  But  do  we  ascribe  to  God  the  work  of  Satan; 
and  do  we  make  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  the  ensnarer 
and  corrupter  of  His  creation  ?  Is  man's  Maker  man's 
Tempter  ?  ]N"o, — as  one  of  Christ's  hearers  at  the 
very  time  when  this  prayer  against  temptation  was 
given,  the  Apostle  James,  years  after,  wrote,  "  Grod 
tempt eth  no  man,  nor  can  Himself  be  tempted  of  evil." 
From  the  poverty  of  human  language,  however,  many 
words  have  more  than  one  meaning ;  and  temptation 
is  a  term  of  this  very  class.  In  one  of  its  significa- 
tions, the  sense  of  alluring  to  sin,  G-od  is  incapable 
of  it.  In  another,  however,  the  sense  of  trying  and 
displaying  character,  G-od,  as  the  Judge  of  the  earth, 
is  and  must  be,  whilst  this  life  of  probation  lasts, 
pledged  to  continue  this  application  of  the  probe  and 
the  crucible  to  human  character.  So  he  tempted  Abra- 
ham, when  testing  the  strength  of  his  faith  and  guaging 
the  depth  of  his  love  to  God,  by  asking  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac.  So  he  tried  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  to  prove 
them,  and  to  know  what  was  in  their  hearts.  So  he 
lets  afliiction  and  prosperity,  and  the  changing  events 
of  changing  times  go  over  us,  to  develope  and  reveal 
us  to  ourselves  and  to  others.  But  if  He  does,  in  this 
latter  sense  of  the  term,  subject  every  heart  and  char- 
acter to  the  scrutiny  of  His  providential  tests,  and 
trials,  why,  it  may  be  asked,  should  we  here  deprecate 
it  ?  Ought  we  not  rather  to  court  it,  and  welcoming 
it,  as  the  same  apostle  bids  us,  "  count  it  all  joy  to 
fall  into  divers  temptations  ?"  And  then,  should  we 
not  invoke  rather  than  deplore  these  needful  and  profit- 


LECTURE     Vir.  15& 

able  trials  ?  We  reply  :  The  protest  and  supplication 
of  our  text  are  directed  against  temptations  too  strong 
and  too  grave,  "  more  than  we  are  able  to  bear,''''  and 
the  petition  is,  on  the  believer's  part,  a  virtual  urging 
of  the  promise  elsewhere  given,  that  Grod  will,  to  His 
own  humble  and  penitent  suppliants,  with  every  temp- 
tation provide  a  way  of  escape. 

What  we  mean — when  we  ask  of  Him  that  He 
should  conduct  us  not  into  such  intolerable  and  over- 
mastering temptation  as  shall  sweep  our  faith  from 
its  foothold,  hurl  us  from  our  steadfastness,  and  whelm 
us  in  despair  and  perdition, — may  be  illustrated  from 
an  incident  in  the  history  of  the  prophet  Elisha.* 
The  Syrian  army,  a  great  host,  with  their  prancing 
horses  and  rattling  chariots,  had  been  sent  to  Dothan, 
a  city  in  Israel,  of  smaller  size,  and  where  the  prophet 
has  his  residence.  This  town  the  besieging  force  were 
probably  competent  to  surround  and  beleaguer.  They 
beguiled  the  journey  thither,  perchance,  with  specula- 
tions as  to  their  probable  spoil,  and  as  to  their  cap- 
tives' fate.  But  at  the  prophet's  prayer,  the  prophet's 
G-od  smote  them  with  blindness.  And,  then,  they  un- 
wittingly surrendered  themselves  to  be  led  into  the 
capital  city  of  Israel.  They  enter  the  broad-leaved 
gates  of  Samaria  with  its  stronger  garrisons  and  its 
more  imposing  bulwarks  ;  and,  when  the  spell  is  re- 
moved, the  Syrians  find  themselves  shut  up  in  an  alien 
city,  and  hemmed  around  by  a  superior  force,  like  the 
wolf  entrapped  on  the  verge  of  the  sheepfold,  in  the 
pit  which  the  hunters  have  dug,  his  flight  hopelessly 

♦   2  Kings,  vi. 


160 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER, 


barred  by  the  solid  walls  of  his  dungeon,  and  threat- 
ened on  every  side  with  the  shepherds'  bristling 
spears  To  Dothan  their  own  captains  had  led  these 
Pagan  bands,  expecting  merely  a  human  foe,  and  in 
the  less  numerous  hosts  of  Israel  there  stationed,  not 
dreading  an  unequal  or  disastrous  rencounter.  But 
to  Samaria  God's  own  hand  conducted  them,  to  en- 
counter more  than  mere  mortal  powers, — not  to  enclose 
the  city,  as  they  had  hoped,  but  to  be  themselves  en- 
closed within  its  ramparts,  and  to  awake  from  their 
delusion  as  they  saw  flaunting  from  every  turret  and 
angle  of  the  walls  the  standards  of  an  enemy  out- 
numbering their  own  forces,  and  who  had  become 
without  a  conflict  their  triumphant  and  mocking  cap- 
tors. The  Syrians  had  come  from  their  own  homes, 
expecting  to  be  led  past,  or  to  be  led  victoriously 
through  such  cities  of  Israel,  as  they  might  see  fit  to 
visit.  Instead  of  this  they  were  led  into  the  metrop- 
olis of  the  land  which  they  had  invaded,  to  find  them- 
selves prisoners  and  victims  without  a  battle  and 
without  a  blow.  The  wolf  was  led  into  the  trap, 
and  it  had  shut  down  upon  him. 

Now  Grod  may  give  us  up  to  ourselves  and  to  our 
spiritual  adversaries,  so  that  we  shall  be  led  into  temp- 
tation, and  hopelessly  caged  and  entrapped  within  its 
impassable  barriers,  meeting  a  den  where  we  had 
thought  to  find  a  thoroughfare.  But  his  believing 
people,  vigilant  and  prayerful,  whilst  they  may  not 
expect  to  escape  all  collision  with  the  allurements  and 
suggestions  of  evil,  will  be  led,  by  the  Captain  of  their 
salvation,  not  into  it,  so  much  as  through  it  and  past 


LECTURE     Vri.  161 

it.  With  prayer  for  our  weapon  and  God  for  our 
guide,  my  beloved  hearers,  we  need  not  fear,  but  that 
God  will  make  every  stronghold  of  the  tempter  what 
Jericho  was  to  the  chosen  tribes,  a  doomed  city  whose 
walls  cannot  stand  before  the  cry  of  our  faith,  and 
whose  hosts  melt  into  dismay  and  defeat  before  our 
exulting  onset.  God  will  make  us  more  than  con- 
querors over  all  our  enemies,  and  "  bruise  Satan  under 
our  feet  shortly."  But  if  we  go  on,  presumptuous  and 
self-confident, — forgetting  God  and  restraining  prayer, 
we  shall  find  our  Dothans  become  unexpectedly  Sa- 
marias,  and  be  led,  ere  we  are  aware,  into  the  lures  of 
some  mighty  and  overwhelming  temptation  that  will 
furnish,  if  God's  mercy  do  not  prevent  it,  the  dungeon 
of  our  hopes  and  the  scaffold  of  our  souls.  An  Ahitho- 
phel  or  a  Judas,  greedy  of  revenge  or  gold,  finds  the 
snare  that  had  been  woven  for  other  prey,  unexpectedly 
haltering  his  own  neck.  A  Haman  rears  some  mighty 
and  conspicuous  scheme  of  wickedness,  all,  as  he  sup- 
poses, at  the  expense  of  his  hapless  neighbors ;  but 
where  he  is,  in  God's  wondrous  purposes,  to  become 
himself  the  first  victim — a  spectacle  of  Craft,  caught 
and  choked  in  its  own  toils. 

With  these  preliminary  remarks,  as  to  what  we  sup- 
pose the  force  of  the  figure  here  employed,  let  us  im- 
])lore  God's  blessing  and  the  aids  of  His  Spirit,  as  we 
consider, 

I.  The  danger:   "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 

II.  The  refuge  :  *'  Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 
In  God's  Providence,  grace,  and  Spirit,  we  seek  defence 


162  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

from  the  evils  around  and  within  us — "Lead  (Thou— 
0  Lord  and  Father.") 

IIL  The  Intercession :  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 
We  ask  not  merely  for  our  own  personal  perils,  but  for 
our  fellow- voyagers  through  the  reefs  and  quicksands  of 
life  as  well ;  for  the  household,  the  church,  the  city,  and 
nation,  the  present  age  and  the  coming  race  of  mankind. 

I.  Our  danger  springs  from  the  fact  of  our  moral 
weakness,  and  that,  even  if  we  have  been  regener- 
ated and  pardoned,  our  moral  convalescence  is  as  yet 
but  imperfect,  and  its  progress  exceedingly  protracted 
and  tedious.  "  Elias  was  a  man  of  like  passions  with 
ws."  The  best  of  men  are  but  brands  plucked  from 
the  burning,  all  charred  with  the  fires  through  which 
they  have  past,  and  readily  rekindling  at  the  contact  of 
the  casual  spark — much  more  of  the  wide-spread  con- 
flagration around  them.  We  carry  about  us  an  internal 
enemy,  in  that  heart  "  deceitful  above  all  things  and 
desperately  wicked,"  a  traitor  not  plotting  without  and 
at  the  gates,  but  in  the  inmost  citadel,  cherishing  even 
there  his  proneness  to  backslide  from  Shaddai  to  Diabo- 
lus,  and  but  too  eager  to  sell  afresh  the  town  of  Man- 
soul  to  its  old  tyrannous  usurper.  We  are  surrounded 
by  evil  influences  and  ensnaring  examples  in  the  world 
which  herns  our  path.  "  Ill-speech"  is  not  only  shout- 
ing his  proclamations  at  "  Ear-gate  ;"  but,  in  the  friv- 
clous  and  foul  literature  of  our  times,  this  orator  and 
herald  of  Diabolus  is  sending  his  letters  missive  to 
"  Eye-gate"  as  well,  in  ceaseless  profusion.  We  do  not 
believe,  with  a  French  philosopher  of  our  times,  that  it 
is  strictly  true,  that  the  age  it  is  which  makes  the  man  ; 


LECTURE     VI  r.  163 

we  hold  rather  that  Grod  moulds  both  the  age  and  the 
man,  and  influences  the  one  by  the  other.  Nor  do  wo 
believe,  with  the  infidel  Socialist,  Robert  Owen,  that 
individual  character  is  the  mere  passive  creation  of 
social  circumstances,  and  that  for  our  peculiar  charac- 
ter we  are  consequently  not  personally  responsible ; 
for  we  see  all  experience,  and  all  history,  and  all  con- 
sciousness sustaining  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  that 
our  own  inclinations  have  yet  more  to  do  with  our 
character  and  condition  than  our  neighbor's  examples, 
and  that  "  as  a  man  tlnnketh  in  his  heart  so  IS  HE." 
But  it  is  also  true,  that  our  associates  and  contempo- 
raries most  powerfully  influence  us  for  good  or  evil. 
The  table  of  a  riotous  Belshazzar  was  not  the  most 
favorable  place  for  learning  or  practising  temperance. 
The  family  of  Lot  were  little  likely  to  be  eminent  for 
prudence  or  virtue,  reared  amid  the  flagitious  cities  oi 
the  guilty  plain.  Evil  rulers,  and  authors,  and  teach- 
ers, and  companions,  how  much  do  they  destroy  of 
good,  and  how  potent  are  they  for  evil.  Andj  in  addi- 
tion to  these  human  sources  of  corruption,  let  us  re- 
member the  influence  of  the  unseen  Satan  and  his 
spiritual  hosts.  Subtle,  inveterate,  practised,  and  un- 
tiring,— flitting  restlessly,  in  sight  of  a  lost  and  hated 
Heaven,  around  our  sin-defiled  Earth,  which  he  covets 
as  his  dominion, — he  goeth  about  as  a  roaring  Uoq 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour, — his  hate  unsated,  and 
his  craft  not  easily  foiled.  Formidable  he  is  in  his  open 
and  roaring  wrath  ;  more  formidable  in  his  goodly  mask 
and  saintly  disguise,  as  an  angel  of  light ;  and  not  least 
formidable,  again,  is  he,  when  persuading  a  Sadducean 


1G4  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

age  like  our  own,  that  he  is  but  a  nonentity,  and  an 
obsolete  bugbear  of  older  and  ruder  times. 

Then,  let  us  remember  the  accursed  alchemy  of  sin 
in  us  and  in  our  tempters,  both  the  visible  and  invis- 
ible,— that  hellish  art  of  corruption,  which  can  make 
God's  own  works  and  choice  gifts,  occasions  of  temp- 
iation  to  us,  and  render  our  very  blessings  a  curse. 
Thus,  a  mother's  kindness  may  injure  the  child  on 
whom  it  is  lavished.  Friendship  and  kindred,  and 
home  and  love,  all  may  ensnare  us.  Wealth,  in  itself 
God's  gift,  how  often  is  it  made,  by  man's  coveting, 
"  filthy  lucre."  Knowledge,  the  food  of  the  soul,  how 
may  it  become  the  poisonous  and  baleful  fruit  of  the 
forbidden  tree  ;  and  worldly  honor  and  worldly  power, 
what  crimes  have  they  incited  and  palliated  and  pro- 
tected. Life,  may  become, — as  in  the  case  of  many  of 
the  antediluvians  it  seems  to  have  done, — though  its 
every  hour,  throughout  its  long  centuries  were  a  new 
favor  of  Heaven — may  become,  in  consequence  of  the 
treachery  of  man's  heart  misinterpreting  its  lessons, — a 
fresh  and  stronger  temptation  to  persevere  in  sin  ;  and 
its  extension  may  but  serve  to  foster  the  hopes  of  pro- 
longed impunity  in  wickedness.  Our  Bibles,  and  Sab- 
baths, and  sanctuaries,  and  religious  privileges,  may  be 
all  so  used  or  relied  upon  as  to  become  but  a  seal  of  ag- 
gravation to  our  guilt,  and  of  hopelessness  as  to  our  final 
conversion.  The  prophets'  tombs,  and  Abraham  for  an 
ancestor,  helped  to  make  the  Pharisees  the  more  the 
children  of  Hell.  Social  progress  may  become  the 
watchword  of  revolt  against  Revelation  and  God — Lib- 
erty oe   pel  verted  into  an  occasion  of  licentiousness— 


L  E  C  T  U  R  E     V  1 1.  1  65 

and  the  very  ordinances  and  creeds  of  Christianity 
be  transmuted  into  a  veil  and  den  for  Antichrist.  The 
power  of  immoral  transmutation,  of  turning  good  into 
evil,  possessed  by  our  fallen  nature,  is  most  tremendous 
and  appalling.  Aye — the  blood  of  a  scorned  Saviour. 
may  be  made,  by  your  unbelief  and  mine,  the  deadliest 
element  in  our  present  sin  and  in  our  coming  woe.  De- 
spite done  to  the  Spirit  of  grace  may  convert  His  be- 
nign ministerings  and  proffered  comfortings,  into  the 
foundation  of  the  sin  that  hath  no  remission  before  G  od, 
and  no  hope  for  all  eternity.  And  in  no  scene  of  Earth, 
— in  no  condition, — are  we  exempt  from  the  incursions 
of  temptation.  If  we  flee  to  the  desert,  and  brook  not 
the  sight  of  our  fellow-creature's  face,  we  bear  thither 
the  fiend  within  ;  we  cannot  build  out  or  bar  out  the  in- 
dwelling devil.  The  gratings  of  the  monastery  cannot 
exclude  the  wings  of  the  Fallen  Seraph,  nor  solitude  sanc- 
tify the  unregenerate  heart.  In  the  garden  or  the  grove, 
the  palace  or  the  hermitage,  the  crowded  city  or  the 
howling  wilderness,  Sin  tracks  us  and  Self  haunts  us. 
If  the  poor  is  tempted  to  envy  and  dishonesty ;  the 
rich,  as  Agur  testified,  is  equally  endangered  by  pride 
and  luxury.  If  the  man  of  ten  talents  is  puffed  up 
with  self-confidence  and  arrogant  impiety ;  the  man 
of  one  talent  is  prone  to  bury  slothfully  the  portion  in- 
trusted to  him  in  the  earth,  and  then  to  quarrel  with 
its  Holy  G-iver.  The  great  adversary  has  in  every 
scene  his  snares,  and  varies  his  baits  for  every  ago  and 
variety  of  condition  and  character.  Each  man  and 
child  of  us  has  his  easily  besetting  sin.  The  rash  and 
the  cautious,  the  young  and  the  old,  the  rude  and  the 


166 


THE     LORUS     PRAYER. 


educated,  the  visitant  of  the  sanctuary  and  the  open 
neglecter  of  it,  the  profane  and  ilie  devout,  the  lover 
of  solitude  and  the  lover  of  society — all  hav<j  their 
snares.  Satan  can  misquote  Scripture  and  misinter- 
pret Providence — and  preach  presumption  or  despair, 
heresy  or  superstition,  or  infidelity,  as  he  finds  best. 
He  can  assume  the  sage,  the  sophist,  or  the  buftbon, 
the  canonist  or  the  statesman,  at  will.  He  spares  not 
spiritual  greatness.  Paul  was  buffeted.  The  most 
eminent  of  God's  saints,  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New, — Noah,  Abraham,  David,  Hezekiah,  and  the 
Apostles,  have  suffered  by  him.  He  spares  not  the 
season  of  highest  spiritual  profiting.  Ere  you  rise 
from  your  knees,  his  suggestions  crowd  the  devout 
heart.  Ere  the  sanctuary  is  quitted,  his  emissaries, 
as  birds  of  the  air,  glean  away  the  scattered  seeds  of 
truth  from  the  memory.  When  our  Lord  himself  had 
been,  at  his  baptism,  owned  from  Heaven  as  the  Son 
of  God,  he  was  led  away,  by  the  Spirit,  into  the  wil- 
derness to  be  tempted.  And  how  often  does  some  fiery 
dart  glance  on  the  Christian's  armor,  just  after  some 
season  of  richest  communion  with  his  God.  Descend 
from  the  Mount  of  Revelation  with  Moses ;  and  at  its 
foot  is  an  idolatrous  camp,  dancing  around  a  golden 
calf.  Come  down  with  entranced  apostles  from  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  ;  and  the  world,  whom  there 
you  encounter,  are  a  grief  to  the  Holy  One  by  their 
unbelieving  cavils.  As  John  Newton  pithily  said  :  It 
is  the  man  bringing  his  dividend  from  the  Bank  door 
who  has  most  cause  to  dread  the  pilferer's  hand.  Yea 
— Temptation   spared   not    Christ   himself      Mother 


LECTURE     VII.  167 

and  brethren  tempted  our  Lord,  when  the  one  would 
prescribe  to  Him  the  season  and  scene  of  putting  forth 
his  veiled  Godhead,  at  the  marriage  feast  in  Cana  of 
G-alilee  ;  and  when  the  other  would  have  hurried  the 
hour  of  his  going  up  to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  Dis- 
ciples tempted  Him,  when  they  cried,  God  forbid,  to 
his  predictions  of  His  mediatorial  sufferings,  and  quar- 
relled about  the  division  of  seats  in  His  kingdom.  The 
multitude  tempted  Him  when  they  would  be  received 
as  the  disciples  not  of  his  truth  but  of  his  loaves,  and 
were  eager  to  force  upon  the  Antagonist  of  all  carnalism 
in  religion,  a  carnal  crown,  and  a  carnal  throne,  and 
a  carnal  policy.  The  lawyer  and  the  Pharisees 
tempted  him,  with  questions  as  to  the  tribute  money 
for  Caesar,  and  as  to  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law, 
and  as  to  the  sanctity  of  the  Sabbath  and  the  temple ; 
and  the  Sadducee  continued  the  work,  on  another  side, 
with  cavils  as  to  the  resurrection  and  the  law  of  di- 
vorce, Satan  buffeted  Him  at  the  introduction  of  His 
public  ministry  ;  and,  as  we  gather  from  the  prophetic 
Psalms,  at  the  close  of  Christ's  earthly  course,  renewed 
his  assaults  by  the  most  ferocious  onset,  when  "  the  bulls 
of  Bashan,  and  the  dogs"  of  Hell,  bellowed  and  howled 
around  the  meek  and  Atoning  Lamb.  Describing  His 
own  career,  and  bidding  farewell  to  His  little  flock,  he 
called  them  those  who  "  had  continued  with  Him  in 
His  temptations  ;" — as  if  all  the  pathway  which  they 
had  trodden  at  His  side  had  led  through  a  field,  strewn 
with  snares  and  pitfalls  at  every  step.  And,  besides 
all  these,  the  temptations  which  Scripture  has  ex- 
pressly indicated,  how  constant  and  severe  must  have 


168  THE     LORD   S     PRAYER. 

been  the  pressure  of  temptation,  not  explicitly  de- 
scribed in  the  New  Testament,  against  which  His  hu- 
man nature  must  have  been  necessarily  called  to  strug- 
gle, in  controlling  the  exhibition  at  times  of  the  in- 
dwelling G-odhead.  Had  we  been  vested  with  Divine 
Sovereignty  and  Lordship  over  twelve  legions  of  angels, 
could  our  human  endurance  have  brooked,  like  His, 
the  injustice  and  cowardice  of  Roman  praetors,  and  the 
insolence  of  Jewish  kinglings,  whose  faces  a  glance  of 
His  Divine  Eye  could  have  mouldered  into  ashes  ? 
Had  we  His  Omniscience,  could  we  have  locked  it 
down,  and  kept  it  under  restraint,  from  exposing  in 
open  day  the  hidden  enormities  of  the  hypocritical 
foes,  that  confronted  and  pursued  Him  along  all  His 
meek  and  beneficent  v/ay  ?  Had  we  the  resources  of 
the  wide  universe  at  our  command,  could  we  have 
brooked  the  crown  of  thorns,  the  sceptre  of  reed,  the 
society  of  malefactors,  and  the  cross,  with  all  its  agony 
and  all  its  ignominy  ? 

Scripture  and  Experience,  the  history  of  the  world, 
and  of  the  Church,  and  of  the  Head  of  the  Church, 
here,  all  attest  the  pressure  and  extent  of  the  danger. 

H.  But  let  us  now  turn  to  the  second  branch  of  our 
theme,  and  remember, — tempted  as  we  are  continu- 
ally and  most  severely, — that  it  is  in  this  tempted  but 
overcoming  Saviour,  that  we  have  an  unfailing  refuge. 
"  He  was  tempted  in  all  points  like  unto  us,  and  yet 
without  sin,  that  He  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful 
High  Priest."  We  come  to  Him  for  counsel.  And 
He  bids  us  watch   and   pray  that  we  enter  not  into 


LECTURE    vir.  169 

temptation.  "We  come  to  Him  for  sympathy,  and  He 
can  be  touched  with  the  feeUng  of  our  infirmities. 
"VVe  come  to  Him  for  might,  and  we  can  with  Paul  do 
all  things  through  Christ  strengthening  us  ;  "  and  in 
that  He  himself  hath  suffered  being  tempted,  He  is 
able  to  succor  them  that  are  tempted,"* 

We  study  the  history  of  our  Lord's  encounter  in  the 
wilderness  with  His  enemy  and  ours,  and  we  see  there 
the  edge  and  power  of  the  Scriptures,  the  word  of 
God ;  and  how  still,  to  demoniac  subtlety  and  plausi- 
bility, and  pertinacity,  and  audacity,  the  Redeemer 
had  ever  the  one  sufficient  reply, — "  It  is  written," — 
and  the  Deceiver  was  rebuked  and  foiled.  All  the 
spears  of  Hell  sought  in  vain  to  pierce,  and  failed  even 
to  dint  that  immovable  and  infallible  Record  ;  and 
even  in  our  weak  arm,  this  shield  of  Faith  can  yet 
"  quench  all  the  fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked  One."  We 
hear  Him,  as  He  is  in  G-ethsemane,  say  to  the  disci- 
ples, "Watch  and  pray  that  ye  enter  not  into  tempta- 
tion,"— just  as  He  himself  was  passing  into  the  con- 
summation and  close  of  His  own  most  fiery  tempta- 
tions, or  rather  was  preparing  to  pass,  sorely  but 
surely,  through  them.  The  Bible  well  studied — our 
own  hearts  and  God's  providence  carefully  observed, 
and  the  weapon  of  "  all  prayer''^  sedulously  plied, — 
these  are  Christ's  prescriptions  to  His  own  tried  and 
assailed  followers. 

2.  But  it  may  be  said  :  Might  not  our  Father  have 

exempted    us    from    temptation  ?      We    answer :    our 

birth  into  the  world — our  commencement  of  existence 

*  Heb.  L  18. 

8 


170  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

upon  an  earth  that  is,  according  to  G-od's  word,  a  state 
of  probation,  implies  trial,  and  trial  to  imperfect  beings 
in  a  state  of  intermingled  good  and  evil,  as  necessa- 
rily implies  temptation.  But  our  Father  tries,  as  the 
physician  applies  his  stethoscope  to  the  diseased  Imgs, 
or  his  probe  to  the  gaping  wound,  not  to  exasperate 
the  disease  and  enhance  the  injury  ;  but  to  prepare 
the  injured  part  for  healing.  Satan  and  the  world,  and 
our  own  hearts,  on  the  contrary,  appeal  to  the  same 
internal  maladies  and  the  same  external  injuries,  with 
the  spirit  of  a  poisoner  brewing  for  the  diseased  lungs 
some  deadly  fumes,  or  compounding  for  the  wound  some 
venomous  unguent;  or  of  an  assassin,  studying  to  find 
for  the  second  stroke  of  his  dagger  a  more  deadly  aim. 
Temptation,  in  G-od's  hand,  is  but  the  surgeon's  probe. 
In  Satan's,  and  man's,  it  is  \hQ  brigand's  dirk. 

3,  And  God  can  and  does  overrule  for  good,  and 
limits  within  the  bounds  of  the  tolerable  and  the  profit- 
able, even  these, — the  loicked  temptations  of  our  own 
nature,  and  of  our  fellow-mortals,  and  of  fallen  angels. 
Joseph's  brethren  were  murderers  in  heart.  But  G-od 
blessed  for  Joseph's  good,  for  Israel's  good,  and  for 
Egypt's  good,  the  intended  fratricide.  He  is  not  the 
author  of  one  evil  act  or  thought ;  but  He  permits  it, 
and  hems  it  in,  just  as  the  architect  designs,  and  the 
walls  and  ceilings  adjusted  and  adorned  by  his  wis- 
dom, hem  in  the  space,  on  which  the  spider  stretches 
his  web.  Satan  arid  sin  are  as  much  intruders  on 
God's  plans,  as  is  the  spider  an  unwarranted  visitant 
J  the  king's  palace ;  but  as  the  insect  cannot,  by  all 
her  spinning  and  building,  alter  the  architecture  of  tho 


LECTURE     VII. 


171 


edifice  which  she  is  suffered  for  a  time  to  infest  and 
disfigure,  so  Satan's  malice  and  art  are,  all,  kept 
within  the  margin  and  circuit  of  Grod's  wise  designs  ; 
and  the  wrath, — the  sinful,  malignant,  and  tempting 
wrath  of  man  and  of  fiend,  shall  praise  the  Lord,  and 
*'  the  remainder  of  wrath,"  which  would  not  so  sub- 
serve God's  purposes,  and  could  not  thus  swell  His 
praises, — that  residue,  "  will  He  restrain." 

4.  Even  here,  in  this'  dim  and  obscure  state  of 
being,  where  the  power  of  our  vision  is  comparatively 
so  limited,  we  see  that  malignity  and  craft  can  be 
made  to  glorify  God.  The  temptations  buffet  out  the 
pride  and  self-reliance  of  the  disciple,  as  the  rude  toss- 
ings  of  the  ocean,  and  the  rough  experience  of  the 
camp,  and  of  the  wilderness,  may  counteract  the 
enervating  and  distorting  tenderness  of  the  nursery 
and  the  home.  Temptations  drive  the  Christian  to 
the  grace  and  throne  of  Christ.  And  the  victory  of 
the  plaintive,  and  feeble,  and  mortal  disciple  over  the 
proud,  and  subtle,  and  mighty,  but  fallen  archangel, 
— notwithstanding  all  that  archangel's  talents  and  re- 
sources,— illustrates  to  all  worlds  the  wisdom  and 
faithfulness  and  goodness  of  God.  According  to 
promise,  "the  worm  Jacob"  is  made  a  brazen  "flail 
to  thresh  the  mountains."  Our  twining,  p/iant,  and 
vine-like  weakness,  becomes  in  God's  hand,  rigid, 
piercing,  and  irresistible  strength.  Even  here,  we  can 
see  Paul  profiting  by  the  messenger  of  Satan,  the 
thorn  in  his  flesh,  sent  to  buffet  him.  We  see  Luther 
towering  into  new  boldness  of  faith,  and  shooting  as 
from  the  pinnacles  of  temptation  to  a  loftier  height 


172  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  rocket  of  his  testimony ;  as,  in  Christ's  strength, 
he  goes  to  encounter  the  temptations  of  worldly  wrath 
and  Satanic  hate,  at  the  city  of  Worms,  though,  as  he 
says,  the  devils  he  may  meet  there  be  many  as  tho 
tiles  on  the  roofs  of  its  houses.  You  see  Cranmer, 
out  of  the  coil  of  the  temptation  that  had  once 
pinioned  and  thrown  him,  rising  to  a  nobler  martyr- 
dom, and  thrusting  resolutely  into  the  blaze  the 
guilty  hand  that  had  once  denied  his  Lord's  truths. 
And,  as  Luther  said,  such  discipline,  rugged  and  keen 
as  it  may  for  the  time  be,  is  necessary  to  Christian 
usefulness.  "  Prayer,  meditation,  temptation,''^  said 
that  Reformer,  make  the  true  minister  of  Christ. 
Men  learn  the  source  of  their  strength,  and  the  might 
of  their  Helper,  and  the  love  of  their  Heavenly 
Father  ;  and  "  that  the  ivay  of  man  is  not  in  himself ,^^ 
nor,  "  is  it  in  him  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps  ;" 
but  that  our  sufficiency  is  of  God,  and  our  glorying 
should  be  only  in  Him.  They  know  who  it  is  that  is 
"  able  to  keep  them,"  as  says  Jude,  "  from  falling  ;" 
or  as  Peter  describes  Him,  "  The  Lord  knoweth  how 
to  deliver  the  godly  out  of  temptation."*  They  see 
how  kind  it  is  that  G-od  shortens  certain  days  of 
tem])tation  for  the  elect's  sake,  or  else  no  flesh  living 
could  be  saved  in  the  age  of  the  world's  last  and  most 
fiery  trial ;  and  how  generally,  when  Satan  springs 
the  snare,  our  God,  promptly  and  in  the  time  of  need, 
'•  provides  with  the  temptation  a  way  of  escape,''^  and 
the  bird  evades  the  fowler's  grasp,  just  as  his  hand 
was  closing  upon  its  quivering  wings.  Thus  sealing 
*  2  Peter  iL  9. 


LECTURE     VII.  175 

the  lion's  jaw,  and  uptearing  the  viper's  fang,  His 
children  walk  safely  through  fires  which  the  dew  of 
His  grace  only  could  quench.  And,  thus,  the  bark  of 
the  perilled  voyager  sails  untroubled  over  the  billows, 
which  the  oil  of  His  peace  has  availed  to  calm  into 
speedy  and  perfect  repose.  Surely,  my  brethren,  it  is 
well  for  the  believer  himself,  that  he  shoald  not  escape 
all  collision  with  temptation.  It  gives  an  energy  of 
holy  decision  to  his  character, — a  rich  and  transparent 
enamel  to  his  graces, — that  he  has  walked  through 
the  fiery  furnaces,  in  the  train  and  under  the  charge 
of  one  "  like  unto  the  Son  of  Man."  And  Jesus  him- 
self, how  was  He  glorified, — He — the  Captain  of  our 
salvation,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto  glory,  in  being 
Himself  made  perfect  through  sufferings.  If  angels 
were  bidden  to  adore  the  Son  of  God,  when  the  Father 
brought  Him  into  the  world ;  methinks  we,  who  are 
of  the  race  of  mankind, — the  children  of  Adam, — 
and  he,  too,  our  common  ancestor,  that  first  Adam, — 
should  especially  adore  and  magnify  our  Lord,  the 
Second  Adam,  as  He  is  seen  led  of  the  Spirit,  and  led 
of  the  Father,  through  temptation.  As  our  great 
progenitor,  the  author  of  the  Fall,  looked  down  from 
Heaven  on  his  human  descendant  and  Divine  Re- 
deemer, methinks  the  love  of  that  parent  transgressor, 
and  his  wondering,  worshipping  gratitude,  would  be 
chiefly  excited  ;  as  he  saw  Christ  coming  i.ut  of  fche 
wilderness  of  temptation,  pale  and  faint,  but  victorious 
over  those  mightiest  seductions,  which,  in  less  for- 
midable and  less  fascinating  forms,  had  made  the 
heart  of  Adam  and  Eve  succumb  and  yield.     And, 


174  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

in  Christ's  closing  death-grapple  with  the  powers  of 
Hell,  whilst  we  see  how  much  the  body  endured,  as 
it  hung  betwixt  heaven  and  earth,  could  we  know 
now,  as  Christians  shall  one  day  know,  all  that  the 
Saviour's  soul  encountered  from  Hellish  suggestions, 
we  should  feel,  that  one  of  the  brightest  of  the  many 
crowns  that  gleam  on  His  blessed  brow,  is  that  which 
commemorates  Him  as  the  Trampler  upon  Tempta- 
tion. If  the  Hebrew  prophetess  could  cry  over  the 
scattered  forces  of  the  G-entile,  "  0  my  soul,  thou  hast 
trodden  down  strength,"  what  higher  energy  and  what 
wealth  of  significance  has  that  shout,  in  our  Re- 
deemers lips,  as  He  comes  radiant  and  sinless,  out  of 
the  coils  of  the  Dragon,  and  with  his  victor  heel 
crushing  the  adder's  brain :  "  0  my  soul,  thou  hast 
trodden  down  strength.''^  Yea,  —  Amen  !  —  Thou 
crowned  Deliverer ! 

Unaided,  and  left  to  their  own  resources  and  ex- 
perience, which  of  all  the  ransomed  hosts  has  not 
found  that  "  strength"  of  the  Deceiver  and  the  De- 
stroyer too  much  for  his  skill  and  too  much  for  his 
powers?  And,  from  Adam  to  his  last  descendant 
among  the  saints  in  light, — all  erring, — all  foiled, — 
all  baffled,  in  the  rencounter, — these  ransomed  ones 
turn  their  adoring  gaze  on  the  One  Jesus,  Victor  in 
his  first  conflict,  Victor  in  his  last,  Victor  in  all,  Vic- 
tor FOR  ALL,  and  Victor  for  evermore  :  and  they  hear 
him  say,  "  The  god  of  this  world  cometh  and  hath 
NOTHING  IN  ME."  Oil !  is  Hot  that  Saviour  worthy  of 
trust,  and  love,  and  worship,  and  service  ?  May  not 
the  curse  well  blister  the  sinner's  lips  that  speak  not, 


LECTURE     VII.  175 

and  eternal  woe, — the  Anathema  Maranatha, — well 
bind  the  heart  that  feels  not  the  love  of  that  Re- 
deemer ? 

In  the  beautiful  language  of  the  Jansenist  Quesnel, 
our  text,  then,  includes  these  great  truths :  "  This 
petition  we  need  to  utter  in  the  spirit  of  a  sick  man, 
imploring  and  expecting  the  aid  of  his  physician, 
although  at  the  same  time  acknowledging  that  he 
himself  deserves  to  be  abandoned  by  him.  The  way 
of  salvation  is  a  way  of  humility ;  and  the  grace  of 
the  Christian  is  a  grace  given  in  conflict.  Nothing 
more  humbles  us  and  renders  us  more  watchful,  and 
drives  us  more  often  to  the  weapons  of  faith  and 
prayer,  than  this  inability  to  claim  for  ourselves  any 
good,  this  discovery  that  we  are  in  ourselves  capable 
of  all  wickedness — this  presence  of  an  inward  foe 
who  leaves  us  not  an  instant  of  repose  or  of  assurance 
— this  depending  each  moment  on  a  grace  that  is  not 
due  and  of  which  we  are  utterly  undeserving.  Let  us 
adore  the  wise  contrivance  of  our  God  in  the  work  of 
our  salvation,  and  let  us  abandon  ourselves  to  Him, 
with  a  firm  confidence  that  He  will  not  abandon  us 
to  ourselvjs.''^* 

III.  And,  now  let  us  pass  to  the  last  branch  of  our 
remarks.  Intercession  for  others  is  the  duty  and  safe- 
guard of  the  experienced  disciple.  We  look  not  merely 
at  the  nets  spread  for  our  own  feet,  but  at  the  whole 
field  of  travel  to  be  past,  and  the  whole  family  in  peril 
as  they  traverse  it.  When  Job,  coming  out  of  a  long 
and  sad  conflict,  had  his  final  deliverance,  and  "  the 
*  Quesnel.    Matt,  vi  13, 


176  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

turning  of  his  captivity,"  it  was  as  he  prayed  for  his 
friends  who  had  been  misguided.  And  how  compre- 
hensive is  the  benevolence  of  such  a  world-grasping 
prayer,  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation."  It  asks,  that 
no  second  Mahomet  arise  to  blind  and  intoxicate  the 
nations.  It  is  a  protest  against  Antichrist  of  all  forms 
— the  Antichrist  of  Rationalism,  and  the  Antichrist  of 
Formalism — all  that  dishonors  God's  truth,  and  be- 
sots man's  soul. 

But  if  we  pray  for  others  that  their  faith  fail  not, 
we  must  not  ourselves  rush  into  temptation,  or  become 
ourselves  leaders  of  those  dependent  upon  us  into  the 
snares  which  we  deprecate.  When  we  look  at  the  fee- 
ble and  glimmering  piety  of  the  best,  and  see  how 
much  it  is  but  as  the  bruised  reed  and  the  smoking 
flax  ;  what  need  have  we  to  commend  it  earnestly  to 
His  care  and  tenderness  who  will  send  new  strength 
and  coherence  into  the  shattered  staff,  and  who  can 
fan  into  a  steady  and  broad  flame  what  is  now  but  a 
reeking  and  offensive  smoke.  But  what  the  temerity 
and  guilt  of  becoming,  by  recklessness,  an  occasion  of 
stumbling  and  offence  to  the  feeble  and  the  imperilled. 
The  rash  word  may  touch  in  the  heart  of  another  what 
is  as  a  poised  and  trembling  balance,  and  send  the 
quivering  purpose  earthward  and  hellward  forever. 
'Whilst  we  are  but  encouraging  carelessness,  we  may 
be  pushing  the  bark  of  some  thoughtless  voyager  into 
the  eddies  of  a  boiling  whirlpool,  or  sending  the  inex- 
perience of  childhood  to  pluck  a  worthless  flower  on 
^e  crumbling  edge  of  a  precipice,  at  whose  foot, — 
dizzy  fathoms  down, — lies  many  a  white  skeleton  of 


LECTURE    VII. 


177 


preceding  adventurers.  They  who  would  not  have 
Grod  lead  them  into  insuperable  temptation,  must  not 
lead  others  thither. 

2.  Let  us  remember  again  that  neglect  of  prayer 
and  forgetfulness  of  God  invite,  and  we  may  say  even 
compel  Him  to  avenge  His  own  wronged  character,  by 
giving  us  up  to  the  dominion  of  unresisted  appetite 
and  irresistible  temptation.  Thus  He  tempted  Pha- 
raoh,  till  his  obduracy  brought  on  bleeding  Egypt  its 
ten  memorable  plagues  ;  and  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
smoked  beneath  the  outpoured  wrath  of  Israel's  God. 
Sin  is,  in  God's  dominions,  one  of  the  most  terrible 
avengers  of  sin.  Because  the  ancient  idolaters  liked 
not  to  retain  God,  as  He  really  was,  in  their  knowl- 
edge, and  corrupted  His  glory  and  untarnished  purity, 
into  those  foul  images  of  godship  which  they  invented, 
as  his  rivals  and  usurping  substitutes, — therefore,  He 
punished  their  sin  by  giving  them  up  to  degrade  and 
hrutify  their  own  nature,  as  they  had  degraded  and 
vilified  and  humanized  His.  The  worshippers  of  bes- 
tial idols  became  beastly  rather  than  human  ;  stupid 
as  the  voiceless  statues  they  hewed ;  deaf  to  Reason 
and  Truth  as  their  own  carved  and  painted  images; 
and  conscienceless  and  shameless  as  the  calves  and 
goats  to  which  they  presented  incense  and  oblations  ; 
and  ridiculous  as  the  apes,  and  grovelling  as  the  ser- 
pents, which  doting  Egypt  condescended  to  adore, 
"  They  that  make  them  are  like  unto  them ;  so  is 
every  one  that  trusteth  in  them."* 

But  we  are  in  no  danger  of  adopting  the  worship  of 

*  Psalm  cxv.  * 

8* 


178  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  graven  image  and  the  molten  image?  Perhaps 
not  in  that  form,  but,  even  in  the  pathway  of  a  Chris- 
tian profession,  a  man  may  find  other  roads  to  the  pit, 
than  through  the  cave  of  Giant  Pagan,  or  past  the  feet 
of  Giant  Pope.  A  booth  in  Vanity  Fair,  may  be  a 
more  decorous  but  not  less  dangerous  abode  or  resort 
for  a  Christian  pilgrim,  than  was  the  shrine  of  Baal 
and  of  Ashtaroth  to  an  ancient  Hebrew. 

3.  We  are  warranted  in  praying  to  be  brought 
through  temptation,  when  it  is  not  of  our  own  seek- 
ing, but  of  God's  sending.  If  we  walk  without  care 
and  without  vigilance,  if  we  acknowledge  not  God  in 
our  ways,  and  take  counsel  at  Ekron,  and  not  at  Zion, 
— leaving  the  Bible  unread  and  the  closet  unvisited, — 
if  the  sanctuary  and  the  Sabbath  lose  their  ancient 
hold  upon  us.  and  we  then  go  on  frowardly  in  the  way 
of  our  own  eyes,  and  after  the  counsel  of  our  own 
heart,  we  have  reason  to  tremble.  A  conscience  quick 
and  sensitive,  under  the  presence  of  the  indwelling 
Spirit  is  like  the  safety-lamp  of  the  miner,  a  ready 
witness  and  a  mysterious  guardian  against  the  death- 
ful  damps,  that,  unseen  but  fatal,  cluster  around  our 
darkling  way.  To  neglect  prayer  and  watching,  is  to 
lay  aside  that  lamp,  and  then  though  the  eye  see  no 
danger  and  the  ear  hear  no  warning,  spiritual  death 
may  be  gathering  around  us  her  invisible  vapors  stored 
with  ruin,  and  rife  for  a  sudden  explosion.  We  are 
tempting  God,  and  shall  ive  be  delivered  ?* 

And  if  this  be  so  with  the  negligent  professor  of  re- 
ligion, is  it  not  applicable  also  to  the  openly  careless 

*  Malachi  iii.  16. 


LECTURE     VII.  179 

who  never  acknowledged  Christ's  claims  to  the  heart 
and  the  life  ?    With  an  evil  nature,  and  a  mortal  body, 
and  a  brittle  and  brief  tenure  of  earth,  you  are  trav- 
ersing perilous  paths.     Had  you  God  for  your  friend, 
your  case  would  be  far  other  than  it  is.     Peril  and 
snare  might  still  beset  you ;  but  you  would  confront 
and   traverse  them,   as   the   Hebrews   of  old  did  the 
weedy  bed  of  the  Red  Sea, — its  watery  walls  guard- 
ing their  dread  way,  the  pillar  of  light  the  vanguard, 
and  the  pillar  of  cloud  the  rear-guard  of  their  myste- 
rious progress, — the  ark  and  the  G-od  of  the  ark  pilot- 
ing and  defending  thera.     But  without  Grod's  blessing, 
and  committed  blindly  to  Satan's  guidance, — return- 
ing prayerless  from  a  prayerless  sanctuary  to  a  prayer- 
less  home,  and  seeking  a  prayerless  couch  at  night, 
and  beginning  on  Monday  a  prayerless  week,  which  is 
to  find  on  Saturday  evening  its  still  prayerless  end, — you 
are  like  a  presumptuous  and  unskilful  traveller,  pass- 
ing under  the  arch  of  the  waters  of  Niagara.     The  fall- 
ing cataract  thundering  above  you, — a  slippery,  slimy 
rock  beneath  your  gliding  feet — the  smoking,  roaring 
abyss  yawning  beside  you — the  imprisoned  winds  beat- 
ing back  your  breath — the  struggling  daylight  coming 
but  mistily  to  the  bewildered  eyes, — what  is  the  terror 
of  your  condition,  if  your  guide,  in  whose  grasp  your 
fingers  tremble,  be  malignant  and  treacherous  and  sui- 
cidal, determined  on  destroying  your  life  at  the  sacri- 
fice of  his  own  ?     He  as.sures  you  that  he  will  bring 
you  safely  through,  upon  the  other  side  of  the  Fall. 
And  SUCH  IS  Satan.     Lost  himself,  and  desperate,  he 
is  set  on  swelling  the  number  of  his  compeers  in  shame 


180  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

and  woe  and  ruin.  If  you  are  his  unresisting  and 
credulous  follower,  how  infinite  the  temerity  and  the 
peril  of  your  dim  way.  God's  law  is  thundering 
above.  Hark !  as  Deep  calls  unto  Deep, — that  flood 
of  wrath  which  deluged  once  a  guilty  world — which 
has  swept  off  nations  into  Hell,  is  asking  over  your 
guilty  heads  from  the  Dread  Throne  :  "  Lord,  how 
LONG?"  And  His  forbearing  Patience  is  sliding  from 
beneath  you,  as  you  struggle  and  stumble  blindly  and 
breathlessly  onward,  with  Sin  for  your  burden  and 
Death  for  your  attendant,  and  Hell  for  your  guide — 
the  aids  of  the  Spirit  and  the  light  of  Conscience  and 
Scripture  fast  failing  you,  as  you  rush,  unsent  and 
tempting  Temptation,  into  caverns  that  have  no  thor- 
oughfare but  into  the  boiling  abyss.  Can  you  afford  to 
be  prayerless  and  thoughtless,  reckless  and  gay  ?  The 
cross — the  grave — the  Judgment-seat — Paradise  and 
the  pit  of  the  abyss — all  reply  :  No !  There  is  no 
peace  to  the  wicked.  Awake.  Escape  for  your  life. 
Resist  the  Tempter.  Be  not  ignorant  of  his  devices, 
or  you  are  lost  soon  and  lost  forever  Lay  hold, 
now,  and  in  an  agony  of  haste,  on  the  hope  set  before 
you  in  the  gospel — even  upon  Christ  Jesus,  the  Only 
Name  given  under  heaven  among  men  whereb}/'  we 
can  be  saved.  Grod  grant  that  such  your  choice  might 
iiow  be.     Amen  I 


**3Dut  Minn  ti3  frnni  ml." 


LECTURE  VIIL 

''foui  Mmi  us  frnni  mV 

Matthew,  vi.  18. 

Some  would  alter  the  rendering  here,  and  make  this 
a  prayer  against  the  Evil  One,  concentrating  in  the 
person  of  Satan  all  our  danger.  To  us,  the  context 
and  the  general  analogy  of  the  New  Testament  seem 
in  favor,  rather,  of  the  present  broader  expression. 
When  our  first  parents  partook  of  the  forbidden  tree, 
they  came  fatally  to  know  g-ood  and  evil.  They  had 
known  good  before,  but  thenceforth  they  knew  it  in 
contrast  with  evil,  and  as  alloyed  by  it.  And  as  g-ood 
includes  both  holiness  and  happiness,  each  of  which 
was  lost  by  forsaking  Grod,  the  Fountain  of  both  ;  so  evil, 
the  opposite  of  good, — comprises  the  two  distinct  but 
kindred  ideas  of  guilt  and  misery, — or  of  evil  as  it 
blights  our  pristine  holiness,  and  of  evil  as  it  blasts  our 
primitive  and  proper  happiness.  Wickedness  and 
wretchedness  sprang  twin-born  into  our  world.  The 
brute  creation  inherited  the  last  without  the  first  Our 
race  incurred  both  alike.  The  "  evil,"  against  which 
our  text  is  a  prayer,  combines  them  both  ;  the  tres- 


184  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

pass  which  provokes  punishment,  and  also  the  penalty 
of  Woe  and  Death  provoked  by  and  pursuing  the  tres- 
pass. The  petition  scans  the  sorrow  of  the  race,  in  its 
sources  and  in  its  streams :  it  surveys  Satan  and  his 
confederates,  and  their  evil  work,  and  their  evil  wages, 
as  the  last  was  seen  of  old  in  the  terrible  procession  of 
the  Apocalypse  :  "  Death,  with  Hell  fDllowing  after." 
The  prayer,  thus,  is  a  protest  against  the  pressure  of 
Sorrow,  as  well  as  against  the  ravages  of  Sin. 

This  petition,  it  will  be  seen,  goes  beyond  that 
which  immediately  preceded  it.  The  Italian  poet,* 
in  painting  the  world  of  Woe,  ranges  its  several  dreary 
mansions  along  a  narrowing  and  descending  volute. 
The  lower  it  sank,  the  narrower  it  grew  in  his  Vision. 
Escape  from  the  influence  of  Hell  is,  in  the  structure 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  represented  by  an  image  the  con- 
verse of  the  poet's.  The  higher  the  way  of  escape 
mounts,  the  broader  it  becomes.  As  by  the  winding 
pathway  and  the  successive  stages  of  this  form  of  sup- 
plication, we  are  borne  upward,  out  of  the  bowels  of 
the  pit  into  which  the  Fall  had  plunged  us,  so  we  find  the 
path  widening  perpetually  as  it  goes  on  ascending ; 
as  we  proceed  from  one  grade  and  platform  of  prayer 
to  another,  the  subject  of  request  extends  itself  out 
more  and  more  widely.  As  we  climb  the  heavenly 
heights,  new  and  broader  prospects  open  around  us. 
W(i  begin  by  deploring  sins  within  ourselves  and  grope 
about  the  narrow  and  dark  den  of  our  own  hearts ;  we 
then  expand  our  petitions  by  reference  to  the  tempta- 
tions in  the  circle  around  and  without  us ;  and  finally, 
*  Dante. 


LECTURE     VIII. 


185 


in  the  words  now  before  us,  we  look  beyond  the  limits 
of  sin  in  us  and  temptation  around  us,  to  the  sorrow 
and  pain  which  may  remain,  even  where  sin  is  re- 
nounced and  where  temptation  is  resisted.  Beyond 
this  state  of  probation,  we  look  to  evil  as  it  shall  be 
recompensed  and  perpetuated  in  the  world  of  retribu- 
tion, and  to  yet  another  world,  where  all  effects  and 
traces  of  evil  are  effaced  from  the  heart  and  lot  of  the 
blessed.  Taken  in  this  sense,  then,  the  sentence  in- 
cludes a  prayer  for  the  repeal  of  the  primal  curse  on 
man  and  earth.  God  is  good.  In  the  highest  sense 
"  there  is  none  good  but  Him."  When  He  made,  at 
first,  our  world  and  our  kind,  he  pronounced  them,  in 
a  subordinate  sense,  good.  But  now,  all  blemished 
and  defiled,  as  Earth  and  Man  have  become,  we  come 
back  to  Him  the  Author,  the  Patron,  and  the  Restorer 
of  Good,  and  implore  of  Him  that  He  Avould  pardon 
and  curb,  and  efface  the  wrong  and  the  woe,  which 
have  come  in  to  blot  His  good  handiwork.  And  how 
widely  is  the  sense  of  this  want  spread.  The  cry  has 
gone  up  for  successive  centuries,  a  funeral  wail  for 
buried  Peace  and  lost  Innocence.  Like  a  beggared 
family,  whose  ancestors  were  princes,  we  are  haunted, 
by  sad  reminiscences  of  a  Paradise  which  can  no- 
where be  found  on  our  earth.  If  men  do  not,  from  the 
blinding  power  of  vanity,  see  their  own  sins,  they 
groan  under  their  neighbors'  depravity  and  tyranny. 
And,  even  if  they  little  feel  the  demerit  of  sin,  either 
in  others  or  in  themselves,  they  are  most  sensitive  as 
to  the  effects  of  it.  They  fret  and  rave  at  its  results 
on  society,  and  happiness,  and  freedom,   and  knowl- 


186  THE     LOKD'S     PRAYER. 

edge.  The  controversies,  inventions,  recriminations, 
anarchies  and  revolutions  of  earth,  what  are  they  but 
the  wailing  cry  and  restless  wandering  of  wretched- 
ness,— groping,  and  plunging,  and  musing,  and  fight- 
ing its  way  toward  relief?  If  men  do  not  so  generally 
miss  Holiness,  they  do  universally  and  continually 
miss  Happiness ;  and  the  cry  of  the  race  still  is,  as  in 
the  Psalmist's  days  :  "  Who  ivill  shoiv  us  any  good  ?'' 
"Who  will  quench  the  heart's  burning  thirst  ?  What 
new  remedy  will  staunch  the  old,  immedicable  wound  ? 
They  have  lost  their  clue  out  of  the  labyrinth,  along 
whose  intricate  galleries  they  rush  and  howl ;  and 
against  whose  insurmountable  barriers  they  vainly 
dash  themselves.  Rejecting  Christ  and  the  Spirit, 
how  shall  they  ever  come  forth  ?  Let  ?as,  my  beloved 
hearers,  ask  the  aid  of  that  Saviour,  and  implore  and 
brook  the  teachings  of  that  Heavenly  Guide,  as  we 
consider, 

I.  The  cry  of  our  text,  stammered,  as  by  the  unre- 
generate  and  heathen  world,  it  universally  is : 

II.  That  cry  articulated,  as  by  the  penitent  and 
Christian,  now  taught  to  know  the  plague  of  his  own 
heart,  it  is : 

III.  That  cry  answered,  as  it  is,  by  God  come  down 
to  our  deliverance. 

I.  We  said  that  the  world,  even  though  ignorant  of 
God's  Spirit  and  Word,  yet  stammered  forth  this 
prayer,  Just  as  the  tongue-tied,  the  paralytic,  or  the 
idiotic,  maims  and  distorts  his  speech,  so  does  the 
worldling,  in  our  own  and  Pagan  lands,  fail  to  speak 
out  aright  his  own  felt  wants.     Is  man  blest  ?     All 


LECTURE     VIII.  187 

history,  and  all  observation,  and  all  consciousness,  re- 
ply that  he  is  not.  What  is  human  life  but  one  long 
conflict  with  suffering  apprehended  ;  or  one  prolonged 
combat  with  suffering  endured  ?  The  burden  of  the 
text  is  heard  in  the  voice  of  the  new-born  babe,  send- 
ing back  the  first  draught  of  air  which  its  tiny  lungs 
have  made,  in  wailing,  as  it  lies  back  on  its  nurse's 
arm  ;  and  it  is  found  in  the  death-rattle  of  the  gray- 
headed  grandsire,  breathing  his  last  after  well  nigh  a 
century's  experience  of  life,  and  its  toils  and  its  woes. 
Each  contest  that  sets  man  against  his  fellows, — from 
wars  like  those  of  Tamerlane  or  Napoleon,  that  lit- 
tered a  continent  with  their  millions  of  dead,  down  to 
the  street-fray  or  the  village  law-suit; — each  statute, 
tribunal,  and  prison,  and  penalty  ; — each  party-gath- 
ering and  each  party-badge  ; — each  form,  and  voice, 
and  look  of  human  anguish; — the  pauper's  thin  and 
trembling  hand — the  maniac's  shriek,  and  the  captive's 
asking  eye — the  sick  man's  hollow  cheek  ; — all  the 
diseases  that  crowd  the  beds  of  the  hospital,  and  per- 
plex the  physician's  skill,  and  crowd  the  volumes  of  a 
medical  library  ; — all  the  remedies  and  diversions  that 
seek  to  while  away  care  or  suppress  thought — the 
drunkard's  bowl,  and  the  song  of  the  reveller,  and  the 
gambler's  dice-box — all  the  wild  utterances  of  human 
revenge  and  hate, — Murder  scowling  on  the  brother 
whose  presence  it  cannot  abide,  and  Jealousy  and 
Envy  nibbling  at  character,  and  hinting  dislike — all 
the  ills  of  childhood,  maturity,  and  age — each  bead  of 
sweat  rolling  from  the  brow  of  honest  toil — each  tear 
that  falls  from  the  eye,  and  each  sigh  that  quits  the 


188  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

burdened  heart — every  pang  felt,  and  every  complaint 
uttered — but  waft  upward  to  God  or  send  around  to 
our  fellow-man,  tlie  one  sad,  monotonous  cry  :   "  De- 

LIVER  us  FROM  EVIL." 

Each  age,  each  condition,  each  change,  has  its  pro- 
tests   and    complaints,  that   falter   out    some    broken 
syllables  of  the  world's  evils,  its  wrongs  and   its  sor- 
rows.    Human  government   is   a    protest  against   the 
evil  of  anarchy ;  and  revolution  is   a  protest  against 
the  evil  of  tyrannical  government.     Industry  is  a  pro- 
test against  the  evil  of  famine  and  want ;  and  amuse- 
ment witnesses  against  the  fatigues  of  exhausting  and 
unremitted  industry.     The  novel,  and  the  opera,  and 
the  day-dream,  are  a  protest  against  the  insipidity  and 
drudgery  of  every-day  life — and  suicide,  what  is  it 
but  a  rash  and  violent  protest  against  the  intolerable 
burden  of  Earth    and    Self?     Men's    traditions   of  a 
golden  age  long  past,  and  their  hopes,  vague  but  glit- 
tering, of  a  better  day  yet  to  come,  are  a  complaint 
against  the  unsatisfactory  character   of  the  time  ac- 
tually present.     In  the  view  of  the  miseries  of  civi- 
lization, a  Rousseau  longs  for  the  restoration  of  bar- 
barian simplicity.     Amongst  us, — a  voyager,  sailing 
away  from  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
as  presented   in   the  comfort  and  order    of   our  own 
shores,    paints    for    us   the    glories   of  some    tropical, 
heathen  isle,  and  the  beauty  of  its  cannibal  Venuses.. 
and  the   delights   and  freedom  of  a   state  of  society, 
where   youth  has  no  shame  and  age  no  reverence ; 
and  the  scenes,  thus  portrayed,  awaken  the  admira- 
tion and  envy  of  some  of  his  civilized  readers.     And, 


LECTURE     VIII.  189 

on  the  other  hand,  the  savage,  admiring  and  ci^veting 
the  wealth  and  pomp  of  civilization,  protests  against 
his  oivn  condition,  as  unsatisfying,  destitute,  and 
wearisome.  The  discontent  of  the  poor  and  the  rest- 
less satiety  of  the  rich, — fretfulness  and  fatigue,  sick- 
ness and  pain,  and  poverty  and  disgrace — what  are 
they  all,  but  placards,  bidding  him  that  runs  to  read 
the  universal  pressure  of  sorrow  and  disappointment  ? 
Let  men  forget  it  or  deny  it, — let  the  Pantheist,  true 
to  his  dreadful  system,  deny  that  evil  is,  and  insist 
with  the  poet,  that,  "  Whatever  is,  is  right,''''  and 
make  all  characters  however  wicked,  and  all  events 
however  wretched,  but  parts  of  one  good  and  perfect 
Nature  and  of  one  all-pervading,  all-moving  Grod — 
let  the  Fatalist,  admitting  the  existence  of  evil,  yet 
deny  that  any  can  deliver  from  it : — Conscience, 
stronger  than  the  Pantheist,  complains  that  Evil  is ; 
and  Hope,  stronger  than  the  Fatalist,  cries  that  deliv- 
erance from  evil  may  be,  and  must  be,  and  shall  be. 

2.  And  not  man  alone ;  but,  in  Scripture,  the  lower 
orders  of  being  as  well,  are  represented  as  taking  their 
part  in  the  great  concert  of  lament  and  supplication, 
that  bewails  the  pressure  and  entreats  the  removal  of 
Evil  Read  Paul's  language  in  the  epistle  to  the 
Romans,  as  he  unveils  the  whole  creation,  groaning 
and  travailing  together  for  their  common  redemption  ■, 
and  do  you  not  see  even  the  brute  and  material  world 
thus  made  virtually,  to  swell  before  their  Maker  th< 
cry  of  the  martyred  saints  beneath  the  altar,  as  thej 
witness  against  the  triumphs  of  Evil,  and  exclaim 
before  the  Just  Judge,    "0   Lord,   how  long?"      If 


190 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER, 


these  subject  and  lower  creatures  groan  over  the  fruit 
of  our  sins,  have  we  any  right  in  glorying  over  those 
sins,  or  show  we  reason  in  thus  boasting  of  our 
bondage  ? 

3.  Yes — let  the  most  irreligious  and  the  most  pros- 
perous of  men,  go  through  the  history  of  his  own  past 
years,  and  then  looking  to  the  future,  ask  whether  he 
has  yet  been  or  is  likely  to  be  happy — whether,  in  the 
failure  of  early  hopes  so  often  frustrated,  and  in  the 
unsatisfactoriness  even  of  those  successes  which  have 
from  time  to  time  crowned  hopes  long  cherished,  he 
has  not  been,  mutely  or  loudly,  repeating  anew  the 
lamentations  of  the  Hebrew  king  who  found  Triumph, 
and  Fame,  and  Power,  but  Vanity  of  vanities, — the 
shadow  of  a  shade  ?  He  may  take  much  of  the  guilt 
in  this  matter  upon  himself,  or  cast  all  the  burden 
of  the  blame  upon  his  fellows  ;  it  may  be  the  fault  of 
the  times,  or  the  country,  or  the  government,  or  the 
clergy  ;  but, — one  thing,  at  least,  is  sure — he  has  not 
been  able  to  grasp  Bliss,  or  evade  Sorrow.  He  trav- 
elled, but  care  went  with  him.  He  rested,  but  sad- 
ness stole  on  his  retirement.  The  hearse  went  creak- 
ing past  the  billiard-room  and  the  theatre.  The  bowl 
could  not  drown  conscience.  Behind  the  covers  of  the 
novel  glared  upon  him  the  stern  face  of  neglected 
duty,  and  the  hard  reality  of  life,  not  so  to  be  quelled 
Rnd  gladdened.  The  oroad  leaves  of  the  Sunday 
newspaper  could  not  shut  out  all  view  of  the  fiery 
Sinai,  of  the  death-bed,  and  the  judgment-seat.  He 
,  wooed  Pleasure  ;  but  Weariness  and  Remorse  came 
as  her  train-bearers.     He  climbed  for  honors.     Hardly 


LECTURE     VIII.  191 

won,  the  laurel  was  barren,  and  it  was  soon  wilted. 
He  dug  for  gold,  for  the  wise  man  had  said,  "  Money 
answereth  all  things ;"  but  when  it  came  up,  bright 
and  plenteous,  it  was  found  to  his  astonishment,  that 
even  it  might  be,  as  Paul  long  since  called  it,  "  a  root 
of  all  e^'^7." 

Or,  if  your  own  lot  was  comparatively  easy,  you 
were  stunned  and  pierced  with  the  sounds  of  distress ; 
and  gazed  loathingly  on  the  ulcers  of  Suffering  and 
Guilt  in  society  around,  until  you  have  longed  for  a 
lodge  in  the  wilderness.  Have  you  looked  inward  for 
solace  and  repose,  and  vowed  that  "  your  mind  should 
be  your  kingdom  ?"  But  as  you  thoughtfully  studied 
the  teachings  cf  conscience,  and  let  in,  upon  the  dim 
cavern  of  Meditation,  the  light  of  Scripture  and 
Judgment,  were  you  easy  ?  Did  not  Thought  bring 
Alarm  ?  Did  you  not  detect  arrears  of  promises,  and 
vows,  and  duties,  long  forgotten ; — and  did  not  the 
Law,  as  you  looked,  become  broader,  and  its  curse 
darker  ?  And  did  not  your  own  obedience  to  the  just 
demands  of  conscience  and  Grod,  seem  more  and  more 
shrivelled  and  insufficient,  the  more  patiently  and  the 
more  thoroughly  you  considered  them  ?  Where  are 
you  ?  Shut  up  to  the  need  of  a  Deliverer.  But  how,  if 
left  to  Nature's  teachings,  shall  you  seek  him  ?  JVJio'e 
is  He? — Who  is  He  1 — Where  is  the  Advocate  even 
competent  to  state  my  case  in  all  its  dark  and  vast 
fulness :  where  the  Helper  to  relieve  it  ? 

n.  The  believer,  penitent  and  taught  of  Grod's  good 
Spirit,  offers  this  prayer  articulately . 

1.  Taught  of  God's  word,  he  traces  back  all  evil, 


192  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

focial  and  physical,  to  moral  evil,  and  finds  the  guilt 
of  its  introduction  into  our  world  resting  on  his  race, 
and  of  its  continuance  resting  on  himself.  He  is  not 
insensible,  more  than  his  fellows,  to  the  keenness  of 
sorrow,  and  bereavement,  and  want,  and  perplexity. 
He  does  not,  with  the  pride  of  the  Stoic,  deny  that 
poverty  and  sickness  and  loneliness  are  evils ;  nor  with 
the  grossness  of  the  Epicurean  does  he  seek  the  alle- 
viation of  these  evils  by  sinking  to  the  level  of  the 
brute,  and  rivalling  the  beasts  that  perish  in  their  de- 
grading joys.  No  social  reform,  however  successful, — 
no  political  revolution,  however  sweeping  and  thor- 
ough,— can  meet  all  the  wants  and  aspirations  of  his 
nature.  The  Phalanstery  may  provide  for  the  kitchen, 
and  the  laundry,  and  the  workshop ;  but  is  it  a  com- 
plete provision  for  the  entire  man,  unless  it  takes 
thought  for  the  aching  heart  and  the  burdened  con- 
science,— for  the  funeral  and  cemetery,  and  the  awful 
realities  that  lie  beyond  even  that  dread  bourne  ? 
He  has  a  conscience  that  must  be  purified;  and  an 
immortality  of  which  he  cannot  strip  himself,  and  that 
must  be  made  hopeful  and  blissful.  As  a  being,  spir- 
itual as  well  as  corporeal, — the  one  part  of  his  nature 
indestructible  by  death,  whilst  the  other  moulders  at 
the  touch  of  decay, — he  will  seeky^r^^  the^/*5^  things  ; 
the  accusations  of  conscience  must  first  be  appeased, 
and  its  monitions  be  heeded  above  the  cries  of  appetite 
and  the  pleadings  of  interest.  And  the  well-being  of 
this  immortal  spirit,  that  feels  so  deeply  and  lives  for 
eternity,  must  be  secured,  come  what  may  of  the  mor- 


LECTURE    Vlir. 


193 


tal  tenement  that  houses  it,   but  for  a  few  earthly 
years. 

2.  But  who  shall  satisfy  for  past  offences,  and  who 
uproot  the  strong  tendencies  for  ill  within  him  ?  Is 
there  help  in  his  fellows  ?  They  may  aid  and  instruct 
and  cheer  him  onward.  The  Christian  church, — like 
travellers  in  arctic  climes,  watching  to  detect  the  first 
evidence  of  frost  seizing  the  face  of  a  fellow-traveller, 
its  unconscious  victim,  and  applying  promptly  the 
remedy, — may  aid  him  in  watching  against  the  frost 
of  spiritual  death,  that  unsuspected  would  else  steal 
upon  him.  But  they  cannot  make  the  atonement,  or 
work  the  regeneration  which  he  needs.  He  sees,  in 
the  false  religions  of  the  world,  the  endurance  of  phys- 
ical evil  represented,  as  if  it  were  a  compensation  and 
set-off  for  the  guilt  of  moral  evil.  The  wheels  of  Jug- 
gernaut's car  roll  on  ;  and  the  crushed  limbs  and  spout- 
ing blood  of  his  worshippers  and  victims,  are  regarded 
as  an  atonement  of  their  sins.  He  finds  iiot,  in  Scrip- 
ture, nor  in  conscience,  any  reason  to  content  himself 
with  such  pleas  as  the  basis  of  pardon.  May  he  look 
higher  than  earth  and  man  ?  He  must :  for  man  and 
earth  cannot  solve  his  doubts  or  quell  his  fears.  He 
is  dying — who  shall  unsting  death  ?  He  is  to  live  and 
bide  the  doomsday  ?  Oh  who  .shall  give  him  acquittal 
there  ?  G-od  could,  but  will  he?  To  Him  he  resorts. 
Whilst  the  worldly  and  the  Pagan  look  to  secondary 
causes  and  to  created  helpers,  he  does  not  indeed  scorn 
or  undervalue  the  worldly  benefits, — won  for  human 
want  and  human  woe  by  the  cares  and  sacrifices  of  the 
patriot,  the  inventor,  the  sage,  the  legislator,  and  the 

9 


194 


THE     LORD'S     PRAYER 


reformer ;  but  he  accepts  them  as  but  small  instal- 
ments of  the  coming  Millennium — he  regards  them  all 
as  but  the  outriders  and  forerunners  of  a  greater  De- 
liverer— the  earnests  and  intimations  of  a  mightier 
and  vaster  boon,  that  neither  patriot  nor  reformer  of 
mere  human  mould  can  ever  bring.  The  world's  de- 
liverers, if  really  such,  are  but  heralds,  filling  the  val- 
leys and  levelling  the  hills,  and  making  plain  the  way 
of  the  Lord,  before  his  face.  If  the  world's  sovereigns 
and  conquerors,  though  promising  to  be  deliverers, 
prove  but  disturbers  and  oppressors,  they  "  overturn 
and  overturn"  in  mad  and  blind  anarchy,  "  until  He 
whose  right  it  is  to  reign^''  comes  in  their  steps.  The 
believer  approaches  to  God,  taught  in  this  prayer  the 
proper  order  of  his  requests  to  his  Father  on  high. 
Whilst  the  world,  then,  "  weary  themselves  in  the  fire 
for  very  vanity,"  looking  for  deliverance  from  temporal 
evil ;  he  asks  first  the  forgiveness  and  remission  of 
sin  within, — then  victory  over  temptation,  or  sin  with- 
out, as  working  on  the  sinfulness  within, — and  then 
finally,  and  as  the  fitting  sequel  of  these  preliminary 
and  preparatory  processes,  the  utter  removal  of  all  evilj 
whether  it  be  personal  or  social,  physical  or  moral, 
temporal  or  eternal.  His  first  cry  is,  "  Take  away  all 
iniquity."  His  first  quest  is  for  the  kingdom  of  Grod 
and  his  righteousness,  and  then,  that  all  things  needful 
be  added  thereto. 

HI  And  how  will  this  petitioner  fare  before  the 
Majesty  of  Heaven  ?  The  appeal  will  be  answered, 
for  He  who  taught  the  articulate  cry  for  deliverance 
from  evil,  in  the  form  of  prayer  now  before  us,  hath 


LECTURE     VII  r.  195 

all  power  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  He  stooped  from 
the  throne  of  equal  and  full  Divinity,  and  came 
amongst  us  to  draft  for  our  use  this  petition ;  and^ 
now  ascended  on  high,  He  lives  to  urge  it  with  con- 
stant efficacy.  The  parchment  on  which  he  indited 
it  was  bleached  to  snowy  whiteness  in  his  own  aton- 
ing blood.  Once  that  parchment,  the  inner  record  ot 
Conscience,  and  the  outer  record  of  Judgment,  con- 
tained a  handwriting  of  ordinances  that  was  against 
us.  He  nailed  it  to  his  cross.  The  streaming  gore 
of  that  dread  oblation  cancelled  the  indictment.  His 
rent  side  and  bursting  heart  made  full  atonement  for 
our  vast  and  countless  offences.  We  needed  the  Re- 
demption ;  and  He,  as  the  only  competent  victim, 
came  to  achieve  it.  The  writing  now  inscribed  on 
the  page  of  Scripture,  and  on  the  believer's  conscience, 
is  a  full  pardon,  a  charter  of  celestial  citizenship  and 
everlasting  salvation. 

2.  But  besides  this  cancelment  of  the  evil  past,  oi 
sin  committed  by  us,  and  of  the  evil  of  punishment 
consequent  and  due  upon  that  guilt,  there  was  needed 
a  change  of  nature.  An  evil  heart  would  be  wretched, 
and  would  renew  fresh  wickedness  and  earn  fresh 
wretchedness,  were  an  uncursed  Paradise  made  again 
its  home.  To  pardon  us  without  regenerating  us,  and 
to  change  the  world  around  to  our  liking,  would  only 
leave  it  a  new  Eden  for  the  range  of  a  new  Satan — 
that  Satan,  self.  Earthly  reformers  have  overlooked 
this  ;  they  have  busied  themselves  about  outer  cir- 
cumstances, and  not  the  inner  character.  They  have 
hoped  to  cure  the  dropsied  limb  by  the  application  ex- 


196  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

ternally  of  the  bandage  and  compress.  They  have 
prescribed  for  the  inner  aneurism  of  the  heart  the 
mere  skin-deep  lotion  and  wash  of  social  ameliorations 
and  outward  decencies.  They  have  found  the  Upas 
tree  of  human  depravity  radiating  death  over  a  wide 
circuit,  and  shooting  its  roots  and  filaments  into  all 
the  laws  and  lore  and  usages, — the  joys  and  toils  and 
scenes  of  earth,  and  dropping  poison  on  all  beneath  its 
shade  ;  and  these  heedless  and  sanguine  philanthro- 
pists have  said,  It  needs  more  compost  in  the  soil,  and 
a  neater  and  taller  fence.  Whitewash  its  trunk  and 
top  its  boughs  and  tie  upon  it  a  few  grafts  of  philoso- 
phy and  almsgiving,  and  order,  and  all  will  be  well. 
But  Divine  Reason  spoke  out,  by  the  lips  of  our  Lord 
in  His  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  "  Make  the  tree  good, 
and  his  fruit  good."  Divine  Justice  brandished  the 
keen  axe  and  laid  it  threateningly  at  the  root  of  this, 
as  of  every  tree  not  bearing  good  fruit ;  and  Hell  kin- 
dled its  fires  in  joyous  expectation  of  the  new  fuel 
soon  to  feed  its  flames.  You  must  change  the  trunk 
and  root,  if  you  will  truly  and  permanently  alter  the 
fruitage.  And  in  consequence  of  Christ's  atonement, 
and  in  continuance  of  its  ransoming  work,  came  down 
the  Regenerating  and  Sanctifying  Spirit.  Soon,  where 
of  old  was  the  Upas  tree,  blooms  now  the  plant  of 
righteousness — the  tree  of  the  planting  of  the  Lord's 
right  hand,  fanned  by  the  airs,  and  watered  by  the 
dews,  and  warmed  by  the  rays  of  God's  own  ceaseless 
and  sufficient  grace ;  and  the  prophet's  glad  words  are 
accomplished  :  "  Listead  of  the  thorn  shall  come  up 
the  fir-tree,  and  instead  of  the  brier  shall  come  up  the 


LECTURE    VIII,  197 

myrtle-tree  :  and  it  shall  be  to  the  Lord  for  a  name, 
for  an  everlasting  sign,  that  shall  not  be  cut  off."* 
Well  may  it  be  such  a  sign  to  the  glory  evermore  of 
His  vastest  Mercy  and  mightiest  Grace. 

The  petition  preceding  this,  for  pardon  of  sin,  had 
respect  to  the  work  of  the  Son  who  purchases  it.  The 
petition  against  Temptation,  may  perhaps  be  regarded 
as  having  respect  especially  to  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  inclines  the  heart  to  good,  and  fences  it 
against  the  Tempter  and  his  arts.  But  the  petition 
of  our  text  groups  together  the  Son  and  the  Comforter, 
and  implores,  as  it  were,  that  with  joined  hands  they 
uplift  and  rescue  our  forlorn  nature,  that  lies  bleeding 
and  prone,  and  helpless,  at  the  mercy  of  Sin,  and 
Death,  and  Hell,  except  as  thus  upraised  and  healed, 
and  ransomed  and  regenerated. 

The  world  sees,  in  cases  of  political  mismanage- 
ment, the  need  of  a  reformation  that  shall  touch  prin- 
ciples ;  and  not  stop  short  in  mere  outer  details,  the 
leaves  and'  twigs  of  the  tree.  It  calls  for  radical  re- 
form. But  the  gospel  is  the  only  true  and  radical  re- 
formation on  earth.  It  goes  into  the  heart,  the  root 
of  the  character,  and  the  fountain  of  the  life ;  as  that 
character  develops  and  that  life  displays  itself,  in  this 
world  not  only,  but  in  the  world  also  beyond  the  grave. 
Men  see  in  the  things  of  the  body  the  absurdity  of  giv- 
ing one  boon,  without  the  addition  of  another  which 
may  be  requisite  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  first.  They 
see,  that  the  gift  of  money  to  a  starving  man  would 
be  valueless,  without  access  to  a  market  wherein  to 
*  Isaiah  Iv.  13, 


198  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

expend  his  new  store,  and  buy  his  bread  ;  and  that  a 
feast  would  be  but  wretched  torture  to  a  man  suffer- 
ing under  a  lock-jaw  ;  that  to  make  the  banquet  a 
boon  you  must  remove  the  intervening  malady — which 
prevents  your  pensioner's  enjoyment  of  the  dainties. 
Henry  the  VIII.  of  England,  brutally  threatened, — 
when  told  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  would  send  a  cardi- 
nal's hat  to  Bishop  Fisher, — that  the  prelate  should 
not  have  a  head  to  wear  it ;  but  what  are  the  goods 
and  reforms  of  earth,  but  crowns  for  the  beheaded,  and 
but  feasts  for  the  victims  whose  lips  are  sealed  against 
food, — if  the  soul  be  not  first  pardoned  and  sancti- 
fied ? 

3.  Yet  after,  in  its  due  order,  the  conversion  of  the 
heart  has  first  taken  place,  and  such  conversions 
have  occurred  numerously  and  widely  among  the  na- 
tions, the  word  of  Grod  does  hold  out  to  us,  even  on 
earth,  the  prospect,  that  there  shall  be,  then,  in  due 
succession,  great  social  and  terrene  changes.  But  the 
reforms  of  these  Millennial  days  will  be  ushered  in, — 
they  will  be  made  possible,  and  be  rendered  perma- 
nent,— by  personal  changes  and  individual  conversions, 
that  shall  go  before  them.  A  time,  then,  comes  when 
Right  shall  under  God's  heaven  spell  Might ;  when 
Truth  shall  be  acknowledged  as  Power,  and  no  longer 
hooted  as  Folly  or  prisoned  as  Treason  and  Blasphemy ; 
and  the  many  of  earth,  instead  of  being  as  now  rest- 
less and  repining  dupes  and  victims,  the  ignorant  and 
the  vicious,  and  the  wretched,  shall  be  the  meek,  and 
the  wise,  and  the  happy  ;  when  the  high  and  the 
great  shall  be  also  the  holy  of  the  nations,  and  the 


LECTURE     VIII.  19y 

kingdom  ami  the  greatness  of  the  dominion  under  the 
whole  heaven  shall  be  given  to  the  people  of  the  saints 
of  the  Most  High  God.  But  as  a  mine,  inundated  and 
abandoned,  must  be  emptied  of  its  water  ere  its  hidden 
ores  can  be  extracted,  so  the  world  must  unlearn  the  evil 
of  sin  ere  it  can  unlearn  the  evil  of  suflfering  ;  the  power 
of  sin  and  religious  error,  falsehood  and  wickedness, 
must  be  exhausted,  ere  the  full  capacity  of  the  race  for 
enjoyment,  and  achievement,  and  knowledge,  here  can 
be  exhibited.  Mankind  must  take  to  the  Second 
Adam, — the  Lord  from  Heaven, — the  work  of  wreck 
and  ruin  made  by  the  First  Adam, — author  and  inlet 
of  the  Fall,  in  order  that  the  work  may  be  undone  and 
the  wrong  repaired  ;  ere  the  curse  can  be  lightened, 
and  society  be  what  reformers  and  revolutionists  wish 
it,  or  human  nature  have  its  own  indistinct  yearnings 
satisfied,  and  its  deep  cravings  met.  The  eye  and  the 
prayer  must  be  uplifted  to  Heaven,  before  it  can  be 
well  with  man  on  the  earth. 

4.  But,  even  beyond  the  Millennium,  lies  a  greater 
glory  and  a  more  awful  state.  It  is  the  eternal  ivorld. 
And  there  only  will  this  prayer  in  its  wondrous  fulness 
be  granted.  Till  the  grace  of  God  give  back  the  body 
ransomed  from  the  last  trace  of  corruption  and  evil, — 
till  Heaven  receive  that  earthly  framework,  renewed 
and  reunited  to  the  sinless  and  exulting  spirit, — the 
long  and  widely  ascending  cry  of  this  petition — a  pe- 
tition going  indistinctly  up  from  Nature,  and  from 
Society,  and  with  more  distinctness  from  the  earthly 
Church — will  not  have  received  its  full  response. 
Whilst  on  earth  Christ  did  not  scorn.the  relief  of  bodily 


200  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

and  sensuous  miseries,  He  fed  hunger  and  healed  dis« 
ease.  He  rescued  Peter  from  drowning,  and  restored 
Lazarus  from  corruption.  He  preserved  Malchus  from 
a  permanent  maiming,  and  guarded  with  his  dying 
breath  his  own  mother  from  homelessness  and  want. 
He  provides,  then,  for  lesser  mercies ;  and  can  remove 
all  lighter  as  well  as  the  greater  evils.  In  the  present 
state  of  human  existence,  however,  he  leaves  many 
bodily  disadvantages  and  earthly  discomforts,  which 
are  the  results  and  plagues  of  moral  evil,  in  order  by 
these  to  try,  and  discipline,  and  perfect  his  own  chil- 
dren. But  over  this  robe  of  worldly  good,  thus  as  yet 
tattered  and  scanty,  He  throws  even  here  the  all- 
adorning  and  perfect  vesture  of  his  Imputed  Righteous- 
ness and  Overruling  Providence.  The  day  comes  when 
even  these  lesser  evils  shall  have,  also,  all  disappeared, 
in  the  case  of  his  people.  And  what  a  "  Deliverance'^ 
will  that  be,  hailed  by  the  jubilant  church  in  the  day 
of  the  Resurrection  and  Last  Judgment,  when  the 
Lamb  shall  present  that  church,  his  bride,  to  the 
Father,  unblemished  and  complete  in  all  the  radiance 
of  holiness  and  felicity,  and  of  the  immediate  and 
beatific  vision,  "  without  spot  or  wrinkle" — the  New 
Jerusalem — heiress  of  Heaven  and  daughter  of  God. 

5.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  refuse  instruction 
and  continue  to  dread  and  deprecate  lesser  evils,  but 
choose  and  clasp  the  greater  and  fatal  evils  of  sin — if 
we  hate  G-od,  and  his  Christ,  and  his  Book — what 
must  soon  be  our  lot  and  our  remorse  ?  Some,  instead 
of  seeking  rescue /rom  evil,  wish  and  hope  deliverance 
by  it  J  or,  like  the  Antinomian,  abusing  the  doctrines 


LECTURE     VIII.  201 

of  grace,  would  expect  and  demand  deliverance  in  sin. 
But  Christ  came  not  to  patronize  evil  but  to  extermi- 
nate it,  and  to  save  His  people  from  their  sins ;  not  to 
embalm  them  in  their  spiritual  death,  but  to  imbue 
and  quicken  them  with  a  new  and  celestial  life.  To 
the  long  litany  of  deprecation,  urged  by  his  penitent 
and  believing  people,  He  has  a  full  and  gracious  re- 
sponse. But  his  foes,  dying  in  their  sins,  and  wish- 
ing no  deliverance  from  evil,  are  delivered  over  unto 
their  own  wishes,  and  given  up  to  evil — to  the  Evil 
One,  merciless  and  murderous — to  their  own  evil  asso- 
ciates, "  hateful  and  hating  one  another" — and  to 
their  own  evil  recollections,  and  evil  consciences,  and 
evil  bickerings,  and  this  for  all  eternity. 

The  thought  of  damnation  is  one  of  overpowering 
terror:  but  the  sinner  dreading  the  award  may  yet 
"  love  damnation  in  its  causes  well,''''  whilst  recoiling 
from  its  consequences.  The  woes  that  surround  and 
burden  you,  are  earnests  of  that  dread  and  desperate 
state.  A  few  more  repulses  of  the  one  Sovereign  and 
most  benign  Redeemer — a  few  more  resortings  to  the 
empirical  remedies  of  earth,  its  self-righteousness,  its 
procrastination,  its  heresies,  its  vain  amusements,  its 
covetousness,  and  worldliness — may  seal  the  disease 
of  sin  invincibly  and  irremediably  upon  you.  Did  you 
ever  enter  the  chamber  of  the  dying  in  his  coma- 
tose slumber,  drawing  apoplectic  breath,  and  now 
dozing  to  his  death  ?  Such,  sinner,  a  little  continu- 
ance of  this  present  carelessness  may  render  thy  state, 
far  as  Heaven  and  eternity  are  concerned, — the  repoee 
of  a  spiritual  apoplexy,  which  shall  be  past  curing. 

9* 


202  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER 

It  seems  repose.  It  is  ruin.  Cry  to  the  Mighty — cry 
to  the  Merciful,  whilst  there  is  yet  hope  of  escape  and 
recovery,  that  He  would  rid  thee  of  evil — or  evil  will 
else  rob  thee  of  Heaven,  and  give  thee  over  to  the 
second  death,  to  the  will  of  Satan,  to  the  tooth  of  Re- 
morse, and  the  barbs  of  Despair,  and  to  the  eternal 
burnings  of  God's  fiery  law.  "  "Who  can  dwell  with 
eternal  burnings  ?"  And  who,  then,  shall  misspend 
the  one  brief  term  of  probation  left  to  escape  those 
fires  ;  who  slight  the  Only  Name  given  under  Heaven 
among  men  whereby  we  can  be  saved  ? 

But,  bought  with  that  costly  ransom,  and  upborne 
to  the  celestial  home  on  the  wings  of  that  mighty  deliv- 
erance, which  the  Redeeming  Son  and  the  Renewing 
Spirit  accomplish,  how  blessed  will  be  the  spectacle, 
as  surveyed  from  the  heavenly  heights, — of  the  way 
in  which  you  have  been  led — of  the  grace  that  pursued, 
and  reclaimed,  and  sustained  you — and  of  Evil  now 
utterly  and  eternally  past.  What  deliverance  can  fc« 
once  compared  with  this  ? 


"fu  tjiin?  is  tjiB  Itiiighni,  ml  tjiB  pmtx,  aii!i  tlii 


LECTURE  IX. 

■''iTnr  tjjinr  is  tjjE  kingkiH;  null  %  pmtt,  ml  tl)? 
glnri};  fnrrnpr.    Mm." 

Matthew,  vi.  13. 

At  the  close  of  the  seventy-second  Psalm,  we  read 
che  inscription:  "The  prayers  of  David,  the  son  of 
Jesse,  are  ended.''''  "We  naturally  feel  an  anxiety  to 
learn  how  they  ended,  and  what  was  the  fitting  and 
crowning  close  of  his  prayers,  in  the  case  of  one  who 
30  delighted,  so  abounded,  and  so  prevailed  in  the  work 
Df  supplication  as  did  the  sweet  singer  of  Israel — the 
man  who  elsewhere  says  of  himself,  "I  give  myself 
unto  prayer  ;"  or  as  it  reads  in  the  original,  with  the 
omission  of  the  connecting  words  supplied  by  our 
translators,  "  I — prayer  :" — Petition  is  the  breath  of 
my  life,  the  very  solace,  and  stay,  and  sum  of  my  ex- 
istence. And  when  we  turn  to  the  verse  immediately 
preceding  that  inscription*  we  read  :  "  And  blessed  be 
his  glorious  name  forever :  and  let  the  whole  earth  be 
filled  with  his  glory.  Amen  and  Amen."  The  sum, 
the  seal, — the  consummation  and  the  crown  of  the 

*  Psalm  Ixxii.  19. 


206  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

devout  breathings  of  a  long  and  busy,  and  religious 
lifetime,  ^\'as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Divine  glory  : 
— and  he  breathes  out  his  soul  and  his  life,  as  it  were, 
in  the  devout  vow — the  absorbing  desire — that  the 
entire  globe  might  be  swathed  in  the  effulgence  of 
that  glory  and  majesty,  and  like  a  mirror,  burnished 
again  from  its  long  accumulation  and  incrustation  of 
dust,  flash  brightly  back  the  full  splendor  of  the  un- 
veiled G-odhead. 

How,  in  this  matter,  do  the  prayers  of  David  and 
of  David's  greater  Son,  the  Lord  our  Redeemer,  co- 
incide as  to  the  theme  and  tone  of  their  last  sen- 
tences. Each  form  of  supplication  dwells  on  the 
glory  of  Grod,  as  its  final  thought,  the  crowning 
chapiter  of  the  column,  and  the  pinnacle  that  gives 
finish  and  symmetry  to  the  pyramid.  We  know  that 
some  versions  of  the  New  Testament,  and  some  manu- 
scripts of  the  original,  omit  entirely  the  sentence 
which  forms  our  text.  But  against  this  omission,  and 
in  favor  of  retaining  the  words  as  a  genuine  portion 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  some  stress  should  surely  be 
laid  on  the  argument,  in  its  favor,  from  the  similar 
burden  so  often  found  appended  to  other  prayers  of 
Holy  Writ.  The  analogy  of  the  supplications  of 
Scripture  is,  we  think,  most  manifestly  for  the  text  as 
it  stands.  Add  to  this  its  natural  and  close  cohesion 
with  the  whole  precedent  portion  of  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
with  which,  as  Calvin  has  remarked,  it  so  aptly  fits. 
Remember,  again,  that  the  Syriac,  the  oldest  of  all 
the  versions  of  the  New  Testament,  has  preserved  the 
clause.     And  lastly,  observe  that  if  the  hand  of  for 


LECTURE     IX.  207 

gery  had  been  busy  in  this  matter  with  the  New  Tes- 
tament, and  had  here  made  an  addition  to  Matthew, 
it  seems  unaccountable  why  the  same  temerity  should 
have  hesitated  to  make  the  change  uniform,  by  ap- 
pending it  also  to  the  form  in  Luke.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  corrupt  changes  which  have  been  made  in 
some  early  transcripts  of  the  New  Testament  have 
often  so  evidently  proceeded  on  the  principle  of 
making  the  phrases  and  incidents  of  one  gospel  repeat 
exactly  those  of  another,  that  we  can  very  easily  con- 
ceive why  an  early  transcriber,  not  finding  our  closing 
paragraph  in  Luke,  would  be,  in  this  spirit  of  rash 
and  conjectural  tampering  to  make  symmetrical  what 
God  had  left  various,  induced  to  omit  it  here,  although 
the  evangelist,  Matthew  himself,  the  original  writer, 
had  inserted  it  in  his  gospel.  But  if  it  be  asked,  why 
should  Christ,  on  the  one  occasion,  use  this  unabridged 
form,  and,  on  the  other,  described  by  Luke,  repeat  the 
prayer  with  such  an  omission,  it  seems  a  sufficient 
reply,  thai  Christ  did  often  reiterate,  in  substance,  at 
a  new  scene  and  to  another  auditory,  maxims  and 
parables  and  lessons,  which  he  had  elsewhere,  at 
greater  or  at  less  length,  given  to  another  assemblage 
of  hearers.  Seeking  not,  like  man  who  is  eager  for 
the  praise  of  inventive  genius,  the  reputation  of  con- 
tinued originality  and  novelty  in  his  teachings,  he  did 
not  shun  to  repeat  "  line  upon  line,''''  where  the  edifi- 
cation and  salvation  of  his  hearers  were  thus  to  be  at- 
tained. The  form  of  the  Prayer,  in  Matthew,  was 
evidently  presented  to  the  indiscriminate  mass  of  hia 
hearers  ;  and  amongst  these  were  not  only  friends  and 


208  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

disciples,  but  the  prejudiced  also,  and  the  hostile,  and 
those  little  advanced  in  the  knowledge  of  Himself  and 
His  mission,  and  His  kingdom.  For  their  use  He 
gave  the  form,  closing  with  that  general  appeal  to  the 
character  and  rule  and  rights  of  God,  which  they 
were  already  prepared  to  receive,  from  similar  lan- 
guage in  the  Old  Testament.  The  other  form  in 
Luke  was  given  to  his  disciples,  and  wanting  this 
final  argument  with  God,  would  leave,  apparently,  in 
their  minds  the  impression  of  a  vacuity, — a  signifi- 
cant and  emphatic  break  in  the  current  of  prayer — • 
which  the  instruction  elsewhere  given  to  them,  to 
ask  all  of  the  Father  in  His,  the  Messiah's  Name, 
would  enable  them  to  fill  up  in  the  appropriate  man- 
ner. For  that  instruction  explicitly  to  be  given  even 
to  his  disciples,  it  was  not  yet  the  fitting  time,  until 
the  wonders  of  His  crucifixion  and  resurrection  should 
have  fully  expounded,  and  finally  and  unequivocally 
sealed,  His  claims  as  the  Christ  of  God,  and  as  the 
Way  through  whom  only  any  come  to  the  Father. 

Yet  another  reason  might  be  suggested  for  the  vari- 
ance and  diminution  of  the  form,  as  the  evangelist 
Luke  has  presented  it.  Foreseeing  how  easily,  how 
early  and  how  universally,  his  own  churches  would 
yield  to  the  tendency  to  employ  the  Lord's  Prayer  in 
that  very  formalism  which  He  had  reprehended, — He, 
the  Head  of  the  Church,  and  the  Hearer  of  Prayer — 
might,  in  the  fragmentary  shape  and  by  the  minor 
variations  which  He,  on  the  last  occasion,  gave  to  the 
formulary,  have  meant  to  record,  as  by  implication 
and    emphatic    intimation,    his    anticipatory    protest 


LECTURE     IX.  209 

against  such  idolatry  of  the  form.  He  might  thus 
choose  to  show,  that  the  words  were  not  given  as  the 
rigid  mould  of  all  prayer  ;  but  as  sentences  to  be  in- 
laid in  the  ever  new  and  varying  utterances  of  the 
One  free  and  unerring  Spirit,  who  maketh  intercession 
for  the  saints,  and  in  them,  according  to  the  mind  of 
Grod.  He  might  thus  be  reminding  us  how  we  do 
well  to  eye  the  tone  and  current  of  thought,  rather 
than  the  exact  letter  of  our  petitions ;  and  that  we 
make  it  our  chief  anxiety,  after  the  model  so  be- 
queathed, and  aided  by  the  Living  Intercessor,  the 
Holy  Ghost — "  who  takes  the  things  of  the  Son  and 
shows  them  unto  us," — to  present  at  His  unchanging 
throne,  supplications  unchanged  and  uniform  in  their 
temper,  however  varied  and  multiform  in  their  shape 
and  utterances. 

These  preliminary  remarks,  as  to  the  genuineness 
of  this  portion  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  have  prepared 
our  way  now  to  examine  it ;  and  may  the  Spirit  of 
all  grace  be  implored  and  received,  to  aid  us  as  we 
consider, 

I.  The  force  of  this  sentence,  as  a  plea : 

II.  Its  beauty^  as  the  close  of  our  Lord's  Prayer. 

I,  As  a  plea,  it  well  might  have  prevailing  power 
with  Grod,  for  it  took  hold  not  on  human  helpers  or 
patrons,  but  upon  His  strength  —  His  own  divine 
strength  to  make  peace  with  Him.  It  fetched  its 
motives,  mighty  with  our  G-od,  not  from  human  weak- 
ness or  human  wretchedness  even,  much  less  from  the 
presumptuous  and  counterfeit  plea  of  human  merit; 
but  it  found  its  exhaustless  and  availing  arguments 


210  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

in  the  depths  of  the  Divine  Nature.  "When  David 
offered  his  rich  preparations  for  the  Temple,  he  said 
devoutly  to  his  God,  "  of  thine  o-wn  have  we  given 
Thee"* — "  This  store — is  all  thine  own."  And  hero 
David's  Son  and  Lord,  and  Redeemer,  in  rearing 
within  our  souls  a  holier  and  more  enduring  Temple 
for  the  divine  habitation,  bids  us  virtually  to  repeat 
the  patriarch's  plea  for  the  acceptance  of  our  offer- 
ings :  "Of  thine  owii'^ — the  utterances  of  Thine  own 
"Wisdom,  and  the  plans  of  Redemption  framed  by 
Thine  own  grace,  and  subserving  Thine  own  glory — 
"have  we  given  Thee:"  and  all  "this  store"  of  good 
asked,  of  pleas  urged,  of  hopes  cherished,  and  of  con- 
quests over  sin  and  self,  and  Satan,  won  already,  and 
yet  to  be  won, — "  is  all  Thine  own."  From  thy 
'■'■glory"'  of  goodness  it  first  originated:  and  to  the 
^'- glory'''  of  that  goodness  it  shall  everywhere  and 
evermore  redound. 

In  its  first  cluster  of  petitions  the  Lord's  Prayer 
had  therefore  referred  to  the  end  of  man's  being, 
which  was  to  be  the  service  of  his  Parent  and  King 
In  its  next  cluster  of  supplications,  it  had  grouped,  in 
regular  order,  the  means  of  man's  being  and  well- 
being — the  food  that  should  feed  his  body,  and  the 
grace  that  should  restore  his  soul.  And  the  accom- 
plishment of  these  ends^  and  the  bestowment  of  these 
means^  are  now,  in  this  last  and  urgent  plea,  presented 
as  being  rooted  alike,  in  the  glory  and  royalty  of  the 
Crod  at  whose  footstool  we  kneel. 

1.  Let  us  think  on  the  varied  classes  that  crowded 

*  2  Chron.  xxix.  14,  16. 


LECTURE     IX.  211 

around  the  Saviour  as  he  delivered  this  discourse. 
There  was  the  Roman  centurion,  perchance,  proud  of 
the  wide  swoop  of  his  country's  eagles,  and  of  the 
huge  and  rich  prey,  the  wealth  and  lands  on  which 
those  birds  of  imperial  rapine  were  feeding.  To  him, 
"  the  kingdom"  was  not  G-od's — it  was  dssar^s. 
There  was  the  pliant  and  unprincipled  Herodian, 
ready  to  lavish  all  idolatrous  homage  upon  the  Idu- 
mean  usurper  of  David's  throne ;  and  assuredly  in  his 
eyes,  long  as  Herod  gave  place,  and  pay,  and  titles,  and 
whilst  he  beheaded  enemies,  and  fed  his  parasites,  the 
kingdom  was  Herod's.  And  there  was  the  Pharisee 
whum  to  use  an  expressive  metaphor  of  Augustine's, 
pride  had  so  swollen  that  his  eyes  were  closed,  and  to 
him  in  his  spiritual  blindness  the  kingdom  was  Zsrae/'.?. 
God,  in  his  view,  had  mortgaged  Himself  perpetually 
to  the  carnal  descendants  of  Abraham.  But  not  so; 
for  the  Roman  emperor,  and  the  Jewish  king,  and  the 
Jewish  people,  were  sinners ;  they  were  dying,  under 
God's  curse  of  guilt  and  death — they  were  not  one 
king,  but  many  kings — not  one  kingdom,  but  several 
and  rival  royalties,  and  they  were  at  best  but  kings 
of  subject  mortals.  The  dominion  truly  belonged  to 
the  Blessed  and  Only  Potentate,  who  set  them  up — 
princes  and  people — and  put  them  down,  at  His  Sov- 
ereign  pleasure, — the  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of 
Lords. 

And  are  there  no  like  mistakes  in  our  times  and  in 
our  land  ?  Have  you  never  heard — perchance  spoken 
boastingly  yourselves,  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  ? 
Aye,  within  the  proper  limits  of  their  prerogative  as- 


212  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

sert  and  preserve  it.  But  over  Conscience,  and  Scrip- 
ture, and  God,  they  have  and  can  have  no  rights  and 
no  rule.  You  talk  of  the  terrors  and  powers  of  public 
opinion,  but  can  it  exact  on  the  ti'uth  of  Grod,  and  upon 
the  dominion  of  the  True  God  ?  No.  The  wind  that 
swept  over  you,  and  the  ground  your  feet  at  this  in 
stant  press,  witness  that  7nan  made  them  not.  Our 
bodies  were  not  framed  by  our  own  skill  or  power. 
"  For  He  is  our  God,  and  we  are  the  people  of  his  pas- 
ture and  the  sheep  of  his  hand."*  When,  then,  the 
laws  or  usages  of  man  trench  on  the  authority  of  God, 
the  path  of  duty  is  plain,  and  the  law  of  duty  impera- 
tive. But  to  come  nearer,  are  there  not  in  every  man's 
heart  the  workings  of  an  idolatrous  self-ivill,  that,  set- 
ting up  its  own  inclinations  and  its  own  ill-understood 
interests,  as  the  first  object  of  regard,  virtually  claims 
to  set  its  mouth  against  the  heavens,  and  says,  "  Mine 
is  the  kingdom  ;"  and  to  check  and  crucify  the  inter- 
nal traitor,  how  hard  is  the  struggle,  and  how  earnest 
must  be  the  vigilance,  and  how  long  and  ardent  the 
prayer.  How  often  need  we  to  reconquer,  as  it  were, 
in  the  experience  of  our  treacherous  hearts,  this  first 
principle,  that  God  is  the  only  rightful  and  competent 
and  trustworthy  Ruler  of  our  world  and  of  ourselves. 

— "  And  the  power."  There  were  Sadducees,  per- 
haps, among  the  auditoiy  who  thronged  the  mountain- 
side where  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  preaching,  or  some 
Roman  or  Greek  scholar,  a  disciple  of  the  Stoic  phi- 
losophy ;  and  these  men,  whilst  they  would  allow  to 
the  Nazarene,  that  God's  was  the  kingdom,  would  yet 

*  Psalm  xcv.  1. 


LECTURE    IX.     •  213 

claim  that  mart's  was  the  power  of  making,  unaided 
as  it  were  of  Divine  grace,  his  own  destiny.  And 
are  there  not  similar  usurpations  on  the  Divine  Ptights 
noiv  ?  We  hear  much  of  the  poivers  of  Nature.  We 
fear  to  some  minds  it  is  but  an  awkward  and  irreve- 
rent form  of  speech,  intended  to  shut  G-od  out  of  their 
thoughts,  and  to  put  Science  into  the  place  of  Deity. 
We  hear  repeated,  again,  the  adage  of  one  of  the 
world's  great  men,  that  knowledge — human  knowl- 
edge— is  Power ;  and  so,  indeed,  it  is  within  its  own 
restricted  province;  but  is  it  power  to  subdue  and 
cancel  sin, — power  to  earn  Heaven  ?  No.  The  in- 
tellect of  a  Lucifer,  stored  with  all  an  archangel's  at- 
tainments in  knowledge,  would  not  clothe  him  with 
the  power  to  command  Peace  for  himself,  or  bestow 
Happiness  on  others.  And  when  we  come  to  the  great 
work  of  doing  God's  will,  have  we  in  ourselves  power 
even  to  think  a  good  thought,  except  as  we  acknowl- 
edge and  invoke  His  assistance  ?  And  what  is  the 
power  of  the  statesman,  the  scholar,  the  poet,  the  con- 
queror, the  discoverer,  but  a  very  limited  and  much 
refracted  ray  thrown  off  from  God,  the  source  and  cen- 
tre of  all  power,  and  left  with  man  but  ivhere  God 
sees  fit,  and  whe7i  He  sees  fit,  and  whilst  He  sees  fit, 
— -coming,  fading,  and  going  as  the  Blessed  and  Only 
Potentate  commands  ?  And  with  what  holy  urgency 
does  the  experienced  and  humble  Christian  present  thii 
before  God  in  his  prayers.  Called  to  serve  his  genera 
tion  and  to  look  to  his  own  salvation,  what  is  he  bu 
as  he  hangs,  habitually  and  implicitly,  on  the  sustain 
ing  arm  of  his  Almighty  Father  ? 


214  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER 

— "And  the  glory  forever."  There  were  Pharisees 
too,  proud  and  self-adoring,  among  Christ's  hearers. 
They  were  zealous  in  proclaiming  GroJ's  kingdom  and 
poiver,  but  how  did  they  defraud  him  of  His  glory. 
Their  virtues  were  their  own;  their  prayers  and  alms 
and  services,  were  hoarded  and  reckoned  as  obligations 
that  brought  Heaven  into  debt.  But  G-od  is  jealous 
of  His  honor  ;  and  His  glory.  He  w^ill  not  give  to  an- 
other. And  the  system  of  faith, — no  matter  how  deco- 
rous and  respectable  its  adherents, — that  is  not  based 
Dn  the  admission  of  G-od's  claim  to  the  entire  glory  of 
rnan's  salvation,  is  a  perilous  and  ruinous  system. 
When  Israel  had  just  wrought  the  atrocious  offence  of 
forging  and  adoring  the  golden  calf,  and  Moses  inter- 
ceded that  Jehovah  would  not  exterminate  them,  he 
pleaded  the  reproach  that  the  heathen  would  fling  on 
God's  character;  and  when  Joshua,  with  Achan  in 
his  camp,  and  his  host  routed  by  the  men  of  Ai,  sought 
Grod  for  counsel  and  help,  he  asked,  "What  wilt  Thou 
do  with  thy  Great  Name  .'"  Not  Profanity  only,  but  all 
Vain-glory,  that  may  so  cling  even  to  the  regenerate 
soul,  and  against  which  even  Paul  needed  to  be 
guarded  by  the  thorn  in  the  flesh — Vain-glory  we  say, 
as  well  as  coarse  Profanity,  is  here  denounced  and  ab- 
jured. The  victors  of  the  world  shall  cast  their  crowns 
at  the  feet  of  the  Lamb  ;  and  all  glory  and  honor  is 
ascribed  to  Him  who  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  by  the 
inhabitants  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  But  to  slay  this 
self-glorying  is  probably  one  of  the  hardest,  and  one  of 
the  last,  attainments  of  the  Christian  on  earth.  The 
mass  of  men  perish  by  self-will,  setting  up  their  king- 


LECTURE     IX, 


215 


dom  against  God's.  Others  who  escape  that  snare, 
and  allow  Grod  to  be  the  King,  yet  claim  for  them- 
selves a  spiritual  power  and  independence  which  ruins 
them.  But  it  is  possible  for  us  to  evade  this  snare 
also,  and  yet,  like  Herod,  to  take  to  ourselves  the 
homage  that  is  God's,  and  incur  the  doom  of  the  pro- 
fane and  smitten  king.  As  Leighton  has  said :  "  The 
crowns  and  sceptres  of  earth  hang  at  God's  footstool ;" 
and  this  is  true  not  only  of  all  political  rulers,  but  of 
all  forms  of  influence  and  honor  and  good  amongst 
men.  From  God  it  came,  and  to  Him  its  honors  must 
return ;  or  those  who  intercept  the  honor  embezzle 
from  their  Sovereign  and  rob  the  exchequer  of  Heaven 
— an  exchequer,  the  pillage  of  which  never  escaped 
detection  and  condemnation. 

H.  We  have  now  reached  the  second  branch  of  our 
subject,  the  beauty  of  the  sentence  forming  our  text, 
as  constituting  the  close  of  the  hordes  Prayer.  It  is 
observable,  then,  that  the  opening  and  the  closing 
thought  of  the  prayer  fit  into  one  another.  Next  after 
the  appeal  made  to  the  Lord  on  high  as  our  Father, 
comes  the  request.  Hallowed  be  Thy  NB,me.  The 
closing  branch  of  our  text  is  an  appeal  for  God  to  hear 
and  grant,  "  for  thine  is  the  glory."  The  Name  of 
God  hallowed,  and  the  glory  of  God  extolled,  are  but 
variations  of  the  same  great  truth.  In  this  respect  is 
seen,  then,  the  ground  of  Leighton's  remark,  that 
prayer,  "  like  the  heavens,  hath  a  circular  motion^'' 
and  that,  beginning  from  God,  it  returns  to  God  again. 
All  devout  aspirations  and  all  celestial  hopes  in  the 
heart  and  nature  of  man,  if  genuine  and  enduring, 


216  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER 

have  come  first  from  the  Heavens,  whither  they  are 
finally  to  olimb.  Of  them  it  may  be  said,  that  they 
resemble  the  w^aters  as  described  by  Solomon.  The 
clouds  are  filled  from  the  sea,  and  into  that  ocean  their 
bursting  treasures  are  again  poured  back  ;  or  if  break- 
ing on  the  land,  they  seek  the  rivers,  and  along  those 
channels  reach  again  their  parent  depths  from  whence 
they  were  first  evaporated.  If  your  closet  seems  a 
place  of  near  and  filial  converse  with  God,  it  is  not  so 
much  your  devotion  that  has  sought  the  Father,  as  the 
Father's  glowing  love  that  has  won  and  kindled  your 
devotion.  "  He  ^^rsMoved  us."  The  missionary,  and 
pastor,  and  evangelist,  the  pious  friend  and  the  profi- 
table volume,  and  the  seasonable  visit,  and  the  word 
coming  home  to  the  heart,  did  you  good  but  as  G-od 
gave,  and  guided,  and  enforced  them  ;  and  they  will 
continue  to  bless  and  cheer  you,  only  as  you  give  to 
Grod  again,  in  their  use,  the  glory  of  their  success. 
For  the  great  object  of  our  existence,  and  of  all  crea- 
tion, is  the  provision  as  it  were  of  mirrors  raying  back 
the  effulgence  of  the  Divine  greatness,  and  the  up- 
springing  of  flowers  that  shall  bloom  and  glow  in  the 
rains  of  His  mercy  and  the  clear  sunlight  of  His  good- 
ness. To  know,  and  love,  and  to  resemble,  and  to 
adore  Him,  is  the  great  errand  of  my  entrance  on  this 
wide  Universe  of  being.  Aught  less  than  that,  and 
lower  than  that,  is  treason  to  my  own  dignity  ;  and  an 
undue  bedwarfment  of  the  angelic  proportions  with 
which  Eden  clothed  us,  and  to  which  Calvary  restores 
us.  But  try  by  this  simple  test, — the  glory  of  Grod, — ■ 
many  of  our  plans,  and  pursuits,  and  how  does  their 


LECTURE     lA.  217 

pettiness  and  guiltiness  start  to  light  Whereas,  on 
the  other  hand,  performed  in  His  sight  and  for  His 
sake,  the  menial  service  becomes  ennobled ;  and  want, 
and  pain,  and  shame,  and  death,  incurred  for  His  sake, 
lose  their  original  nature,  and  shine  in  the  radiance 
of  the  Being  for  whom  they  were  borne,  and  to  whom 
they  are  devoted. 

2.  Observe,  again,  in  the  structure  of  this  closing 
sentence,  how  praise  is  interwoven  with  all  acceptable 
prayer.  To  the  King,  glorious,  and  eternal,  and 
mighty,  sovereignty,  and  majesty,  and  power  are  to 
be  forever  ascribed.  But  the  ascription  is  not  made, 
as  a  disconnected  doxology  set  apart  from  the  prayer 
which  precedes  it.  Because  of  this  claim  and  right 
on  God's  part,  all  the  supplications  for  pardon  and  aid 
and  supply  that  have  preceded  are  now  afresh  urged. 
And  the  attributes  of  the  Deity  are  wrapped,  if  we 
may  be  forgiven  the  saying,  around  the  humble  obla- 
tion and  petition,  which  we  venture  to  lay  on  God's 
altar. 

And  is  there  not  in  this  description  of  the  Divine 
right  to  rule  and  shine, — to  be  honored  and  to  be 
served, — another  of  those  three-fold  intimations  so  com- 
mon in  the  Scriptures,  preparing  the  mind  to  receive 
the  statements,  elsewhere  in  Scripture  explicitly  made, 
of  a  mysterious  and  ineffable  Trinity  in  the  Divine 
Unity  ?  When  God  by  Moses  taught  Israel  to  say, 
"  Hear,  0  Israel,  the  Lord  your  God  is  One  God,"  was 
it  not  inexplicable,  except  on  the  supposition  of  some 
such  dread  distinction  in  the  Divine  Unity,  that  tho 
Name  which  this  Moses  was  instructed  so  often  to  use 
10 


218  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

for  God  should  be  plural  in  its  form — thai  so  much 

should  be  said  of  the  Angel  of  the   Lord  with  whom 

and  in  whom  the   Lord  was, — and  that  Psalms  and 

Prophecies  should  paint  the  long  promised  and  long 

awaited  Messiah,  as  being  clothed  with  so  many  dread 

and  Divine  prerogatives,  and  titles,  and  offices  ?     In 

the  Levitical  benediction,  there  was  this  triplicity  of 

form.     In  the  song  of  angels,  heard   by  Isaiah,  when 

the  Lord  filled  the  temple,  there  was  a  trine  iteration 

of  the  "Holy"   with    which    His  angels   hailed    and 

lauded  the  King  and  Saviour  of  Israel.     And,  here,  we 

have  the  kingdom.      Now  in  Paul's  Epistle  to  the 

Corinthians,  in  describing  scenes  beyond  the  Judgment, 

we  have  this  reserved  especially  to  the  Father.     We 

have  the  power.     The  New  Testament  speaks  now  of 

the  Son,  as  having  made  all  things  by  the  word  of  His 

power,  and  by  the  same  word  upholding  them  ;   and  it 

also  presents  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  claiming  after 

his  resurrection  that  all  power  in   Heaven  and  earth 

is   committed  to    His   hands.     We   have   the  glory. 

Now   glory  is  the  splendor,   light,  and  irradiance   of 

that  which  is  excellent.     Is  not  the  Holy  Spirit  made 

in  Scripture  the  great  channel  of  light  ?     And  if  so,  is 

it  utterly  unwarranted  to  think,  that  here  may  be  i\\Q 

faint  intimation  of  that   great  mystery,    articulately 

and    distinctly  pronounced    in   the  form  and   law  of 

Christian  baptism,  which    was   to   welcome  disciples 

in  the  Name   of  the   Father,   Son,  and   Holy  Ghost  ? 

And  if  such  allusion  to  the  Triune  character  of  God 

-were  here  intended,  we  see  wherefore  the  order  of  the 

kingdom,  power,  and   glory,  are  here  what  they  are, 


LECTURE     IX.  21& 

instead  of  their  being  put  in  the  inverse  order  of  the 
opening  petitions,  where  the  glory  oiihe  Divine  Name 
stands  first,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  comes  next,  and 
the  loill  (answerable  to  the  power  by  which  that  will 
is  obeyed  or  enforced)  comes  last.  To  make  the  peti- 
tion the  exact  counterpart  of  the  first  branch  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  it  would,  then,  have  been,  "  For  thine 
is  the  power,  the  kingdom,  and  the  glory" — the  power 
to  secure  that  thy  ivill  be  done — the  kingdom,  and 
therefore  thy  dominion  must  come — and  the  glory,  and 
therefore  thy  name  shall  have,  from  the  incense  clouds 
of  the  altar  and  from  the  furnace-mouth  of  the  pit,  its 
due  halo  of  consecration  and  glory.  But  this,  the  lit- 
erary order,  is  departed  from,  that  the  attributes  of 
the  Trinity  may  appear  in  the  closing  plea  according 
to  the  wonted  order  of  the  three  Divine  Names,  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  G-host. 

3.  But  how,  some  Christian  may  inquire,  shall  this 
prayer  remind  us  of  Christ's  atoning  work,  and  of  His 
priestly  intercession  ?  The  Saviour  promised  His  dis- 
ciples, in  allusion  to  the  ladder  seen  by  the  patriarch 
Jacob  in  his  slumbers  at  Bethel,  that  hereafter  they 
should  see  Heaven  opened,  and  angels  ascending  and 
descending  on  the  Son  of  Man.  Did  you  ever,  my  be- 
loved hearers,  gaze  on  some  glowing  work  of  the  pen- 
cil, that  painted  the  opened  gate  of  Heaven,  and  along 
the  far-drawn  pathway  that  led  thither  there  lay  huge 
cloud-like  bars  of  light — solid  blocks  of  that  pure  and 
massive  radiance,  that  was  seen  by  John  paving  the 
streets  of  the  celestial  city,  ^^ pure  gold  as  it  were 
transparent  glass,"  where  the  pellucid   crystal,  and 


220  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

the  sunny  metal,  blended  the  best  qualities  of  each, 
without  their  pecviliar  defects  ?  The  broad  prisms,  in- 
frangible, translucent,  and  resplendent,  lay  like  a  ladder 
of  glory,  reaching  from  the  earth  that  lay  in  gloom  to 
the  skies  bursting  with  light.  Even  such  seems  to  us 
the  structure  of  this  wondrous  and  most  comprehen- 
sive prayer,  of  which,  as  we  think,  Christ  was  not 
only  the  Framer,  but  Himself  was,  in  His  work  as 
Victim,  Mediator,  and  High  Priest,  the  Frameivork, 
and  the  Support  of  every  petition.  Now  the  first  half 
of  the  prayer  is  a  descending  along  this  ladder — from 
the  foot  of  our  Father's  throne, — nay, — from  out  His 
encircling  arms,  and  from  off  His  bosom,  whence  the 
Fall  reft  us.  "We  come  down  by  petitions  that  ask,  first, 
His  glory — ^then,  allude  to  His  kingdom,  and  then,  de- 
scending to  the  earth,  peopled  by  His-  subjects,  pray 
that  on  earth  (thus  at  last  reached  as  the  lowermost 
round  of  the  ladder)  God's  will  may  be  done,  even  so 
as  it  is  done  by  the  seraph  bands  that  press  the  top- 
most rounds  of  the  ladder  in  Heaven.  Then,  the  sup- 
pliant found  thus  prone  and  grovelling  in  his  earthly 
body,  and  in  his  inherited  guilt,  and  in  the  sins  and 
temptations  and  evils  that  surround  .him, — man, — 
from  this  his  low  position,  beside  the  opening  tomb, 
and  the  yawning  abyss  of  Hell, — climbs  up,  by  steps 
of  gradual  ascent,  until  his  last  syllable  of  prayer  and 
his  crowning  ascription  of  praise  touch  the  same  top- 
most round  of  glory,  whence  the  downward  descent  of 
the  Mercy  that  sought  him  had  begun. 

How  did  Christ  connect  Himself  with,  and  virtually 
underlie  by  His  sacrifice  and  intercession,  all  these 


LECTUREIX.  22 1 

petitions  ?  We  answer :  His  incarnation  was  the 
manifestation  of  the  Divine  glory.  His  Messiahship 
a  preaching  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  His  sacrificed 
body  was  given  up  to  vengeance,  as  a  doing  of  the 
Father's  loill ;  so  Himself  phrased  it,  in  the  terrible 
conflict  of  Grethsemane.  Our  daily  food  he  taught  us 
where  to  seek  and  how  to  sanctify.  Our  temptations 
He  shared,  and  revealed  to  us  the  secret  of  foiling 
them  ;  and  deliverance  from  evil, — for  the  body  and 
for  the  soul,  for  this  life  and  the  life  to  come, — whence 
have  we  it,  if  not  from  Himself,  the  Deliverer,  the 
Ransomer,  and  the  Saviour  of  His  people?  Yes,  these 
steps  for  descending  Mercy  and  ascending  Hope — these 
blocks  of  solid  glory — these  beams  of  Heaven's  own 
unsetting  day — that,  in  this  prayer,  were  dropped 
from  our  Father's  upper  home  down  upon  our  dark 
dnd  low  dungeon  ;  and  along  which,  we,  the  heirs  of 
Death  and  Hell,  first  slowly  clamber, — and  then  bound, 
■ — and  at  last  soar, — into  the  upper  skies  and  the  end- 
less life,  were  hewn  from  that  one  quarry — from  the 
Divine  glories  and  the  human  sufferings  of  that  one 
Saviour,  worthy  of  supreme  love  and  trust  and  wor- 
ship for  evermore.  He  not  only  shaped  the  prayer, 
but  sustains  its  every  petition,  buttressing  the  summit 
of  the  ladder  on  the  throne  of  His  original  and  equal 
Godhead  ;  and  bracing  the  foot  of  that  ladder  against 
the  cradle,  the  cross,  and  the  tomb  of  his  human  in- 
carnation. 

You  hope  to  enter  heaven,  my  beloved  hearer,  but 
is  it  in  leading  a  life  of  habitual  prayerlessness  ?  Or 
fan  you  expect  to  force  your  way  into  the  gates  of 


222  THE     LORD'S     PRAYER. 

light,  in  the  neglect  of  that  Redeemer  who  came  to 
your  earth  and  humbled  himself  to  death,  for  the  ex- 
press object  of  opening  the  One  only  possible  Way  for 
our  doomed  race  to  evade  the  bolt  of  Divine  Justice  ? 
The  heart  unchanged,  the  Bible  unread,  the  knee  un- 
bent,— prayerless,  unregenerate,  and  Christless, — how 
can  God  so  falsify  himself,  and  stultify  the  word  and 
cross  of  His  Son,  as  to  admit  you  to  blessedness  ? 
How  can  you  cling  to  a  hope  like  yours,  that  if  it 
could  by  any  possibility  be  authenticated,  must  depose, 
discrown,  and  unchrist  the  Son  of  Grod  ;  and  prove  his 
claims  exaggerated,  and  his  death  needless?  A  sin- 
ner, entering  Heaven  without  the  atonement,  must 
not  only  have  uprooted  the  cross  of  Christ's  humanity, 
but  have  overturned  the  Throne  of  His  original  and 
proper  divinity. 

The  word  "  Amen,"  used  often  by  Christ  himself  as 
an  oath,  attests  our  sincerity.  Of  the  same  root  with 
the  Hebrew  word  for  faith,  it  pledges,  also,  our  trust 
in  God's  ability  to  hear  and  give.  It  is  thus  a  test  to 
try  our  spiritual  condition,  and  an  expression  of  de- 
vout reliance  and  earnest  desire.  With  the  words  of 
Paul  to  the  Ephesian  disciples,*  let  us  then  pray, 
"  UNTO   THE   Father   of   our   Lord  Jesus   Christ,  of 

WHOM  THE  WHOLE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH  IS 
NAMED,  THAT  He  WOULD  GRANT  (us)  ACCORDING  TO  THE 
RICHES  OF  HIS  GLORY,  TO  BE    STRENGTHENED    WITH    MIGHT 

BY   HIS   Spirit    in    the  inner  man,   that  Christ   may 

DWELL    IN   (our)     HEARTS     BY  FAITH  ;    THAT     (wE,)     BEING 

aOOTED  AND  GROUNDED  IN  LOVE,  MAY  BE  ABLE  TO  COMPRE- 

*  Eph.  iii.  14-21. 


LECTURE     IX.  223 

HEND  \VITH  ALL  SAINTS  WHAT  IS  THE  BREADTH,  AND 
LENGTH,     AND    DEPTH,     AND     HEIGHT  ;    AND     TO    KNOW    THE 

LOVE  OF  Christ,  which  passeth  knowledge,  that  (we) 

MIGHT  BE  filled  WITH  ALL  THE  FULNESS  OF  GOD.  NoW 
UNTO  HIM  THAT  IS  ABLE  TO  DO  EXCEEDING  ABUNDANTLY, 
ABOVE  ALL  THAT  WE  ASK  OR  THINK,  ACCORDING  TO  THE 
POWER  THAT  WORKETH  IN  US,   UNTO  HiM  BE   GLORY  IN  THE 

CHURCH  BY  Christ  Jesus,  throughout  all  ages,  world 

WITHOUT  END.       AmEN." 


^p  p  enir  tjr. 


APPENDIX. 


NoT3  A.— Page  175.— Lect.  VII. 

*'  The  ivliolc  family  in  \Jeril  as  they  traverse  it.^* 

From  a  distinguished  tliinker  of  the  English  Established 
Church,  we  copy  the  following  remarks  as  to  the  reach  and 
worth  of  Christian  Intercession.  As  the  work  which  furnishes 
the  ensuing  quotation  has  not  been  reprinted  here,  the  passage 
is  added,  being  remarkable  alike,  as  to  us  it  seems,  for  the 
breadth  of  its  views,  and  the  felicitous  beauty  of  the  language 
in  which  they  are  expressed,  and  the  consolatory  power  to 
the  solitary  and  tempted  suppliant  which  they  minister.  The 
volume  containing  it  is  entitled  "  The  Lord's  Prayer  ; 
Nine  Sermons,  preached  in  the  Chapel  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  by 
F.  D.  Maurice,  Chaplain  of  Lincoln's  Inn — London,  1848  " 

"  '  Lead  us  not  into  temptation.'  0  strange  and  mysterious 
privilege,  that  some  bed-ridden  woman  in  a  lonely  garret, 
who  feels  that  she  is  tempted  to  distrust  the  love  and  mercy 
of  Him  who  sent  His  Son  to  die  for  the  helpless,  should 
wrestle  with  that  doubt,  saying  the  Lord's  Prayer  ;  and  that 
she  should  be  thus  asking  help  lor  those  who  are  dwelling  in 
palaces,  who  scarcely  dream  of  want,  yet  in  their  own  way 
arc  in  peril  great  as  hers  ;  for  the  student,  who,  in  his  chamber, 
is  Jiaunted  with  questions  which  would  seem  to  her  monstrous 


228  APPENDIX. 

and  incredible,  but  which  to  him  are  agonizing ;  for  the 
divine  in  his  terrible  assaults  from  cowardice,  despondency, 
vanity,  from  the  sense  of  his  own  hcartlessness,  from  the 
shame  of  past  neglect,  from  the  appalling  discoveiy  of  evils  in 
himself  M^hich  he  has  denounced  in  others,  from  vulgar  out- 
ward temptations  into  Avhich  he  had  proudly  fancied  that  he 
could  not  fall,  from  dark  suggestions  recurring  often,  that 
words  have  no  realities  corresponding  to  them,  that  what  he 
speaks  of  may  mean  nothing,  because  to  him  it  has  often 
meant  so  little.  Of  all  this  the  sufferer  knows  nothing,  yet 
for  these  she  prays — and  for  the  statesman  who  fancied  the 
world  could  be  moved  by  his  wires,  and  suddenly  finds  that  it 
has  wires  of  its  own  which  move  without  his  bidding  ;  for 
her  country  under  the  pressure  of  calamities  which  the  most 
skilful  seek  in  vain  to  redress  ;  for  all  other  countries  in  their 
throes  of  anguish  which  may  terminate  in  a  second  death  or 
a  new  life.  For  one  and  all  she  cries,  '  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation.'  Their  temptations  and  hers,  different  in  form, 
are  the  same  in  substance.  They,  like  her,  are  tempted  to 
doubt  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  the  author  of  good,  and  not 
of  evil ;  and  that  He  is  mightier  than  the  evil ;  and  that  He  can 
and  will  overthrow  it,  and  deliver  the  universe  out  of  it.  This 
is  the  real  temptation,  there  is  no  other.  All  events,  all  things 
and  persons,  are  bringing  this  temptation  before  us ;  no  man 
is  out  of  the  reach  of  it  mIio  is  in  God's  world  ;  no  man  is 
intended  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of  it  who  is  God's  child.  He 
himself  has  led  us  into  this  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the 
devil ;  we  cannot  fly  from  it ;  we  cannot  find  in  one  corner 
of  it  a  safety  which  there  is  not  in  another  ;  we  cannot  choose 
that  we  shall  not  have  those  temptations  which  are  specially 
fitted  to  reach  our  own  feelings,  tempers,  infirmities  ;  they 
will  be  addressed  to  these  ;  they  will  be  aimed  at  the  heel  or 
head,  at  whatever  part  has  not  been  touched  by  the  fire,  and 


APPENDIX.  229 

is  most  vulnerable.  We  must  not  crave  quarter  from  the 
enemy  :  to  choose  for  ourselves  u'here  we  shall  meet  hira,  is 
to  desert  that  guardianship  in  which  is  all  safety.  But  we 
may  cry,  '  Lead  us  not  into  Temptation  :'  and  praying  so 
we  pray  against  ourselves,  against  our  evil  tendencies,  our 
eagerness  for  that  which  will  ruin  us.  Praying  so,  that  which 
seemed  to  be  poison  becomes  medicine  ;  all  circumstancea 
are  turned  to  good ;  honey  is  gathered  out  of  the  carcass  ; 
death  itself  is  made  the  minister  of  life." — Maurice,  pp.  98- 
100. 


Note  B.— Page  180.— Lect.  VII. 

"  Resist  the   Temjjter.'^ 

Few  characters  in  the  thronged  gallery  of  British  history 
display  such  high  symmetry  and  such  rare  principle,  and  these 
meeting  in  an  age  of  conflict,  change  and  inconsistency,  with 
isuch  universal  homage  and  confidence,  alike  from  the  parties 
for  the  time  dominant  and  from  those  who  were  thwarted  and 
overthrown,  as  does  that  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  the  purest 
Judge,  and  among  the  greatest  lawyers  whom  England  ever 
bred.  In  his  "  Contemplations,"  which  have  been  named  in 
the  Preface  to  this  present  volume,  we  seem  to  discover  the 
secret  training,  by  which  that  eminent  jurist  prepared  himself 
in  the  closet,  for  the  encounter  of  the  tumultuous  and  ensnaring 
influences  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  honored  of  God  and 
all  good  men.  In  the  minuteness  and  fulness  of  his  petitions, 
upon  this  clause  of  the  Lord's  prayer,  we  seem  to  see  tlie 
armory  whence  he  furnished  himself  to  walk  unharmed,  keep- 
ing a  good  conscience,  and  earning  a  good  name,  in  a  day 
when  it  was  difficult  to  retain  either,  and  seemingly  impossi- 
ble to  preserve  both 


230  APPENDIX. 

The  use  daily  made  of  that  volume  in  the  household  traimng 
of  Washington,  clothes  it  with  new  interest  in  the  eyes  of 
Americans.  The  most  amazing  trait  in  the  cliaracter  of  the 
great  Patriot  and  Captain  of  our  Revolution,  was  the  sobriety 
rising  to  majesty,  and  the  balanced  symmetry  and  equipoise 
of  his  powers,  a  trait  in  Avhich  his  character  seems  to  have 
been,  directly  or  indirectly,  formed  upon  that  of  Hale.  As 
the  work  of  the  English  Christian  may  be  inaccessible  to  some 
of  the  readers  of  our  volume,  we  draw  from  it  the  sentences, 
in  which  he  paraphrases  the  petition  for  preservation  from 
Temptation.  (Contemplations  Moral  and  Divine,  by  Sir 
Matthew  Hale  :  London,  1G82.  Part  H.  p.  278,  &c.) 
He  speaks  of  prayer,  as  here  virtually  asking : — 
"  That  the  Almighty  and  Eternal  God  who  so  far  conde- 
scends unto  us,  as  to  ofler  His  hand  to  lead  us  and  Jlis  strength 
to  support  us,  that  sees  all  our  ways,  and  our  wanderings,  and 
the  snares  that  are  spread  for  our  feet,  would  be  pleased  to  guide 
us  by  His  hand  and  by  His  eye,  that  we  may  keep  the  true  and 
old  way  ;  and  if  any  snares  be  laid  there  for  us  by  the  enemy 
of  our  peace,  that  he  would  either  remove  or  break  the  snare, 
07-  lead  us  about  by  them  or  lift  us  over  them;  that  He  would  be 
pleased  to  cleanse  our  hearts  from  our  corruptions,  the  nursery 
of  our  temptations  ;  that  He  would  prepare  us  and  instruct  and 
strengthen  us,  by  His  mighty  Spirit,  to  discern  and  to  oppose, 
and  to  overcome  the  deceits  and  seductions  of  our  own  hearts. 
To  conclude  therefore  this  part  of  this  petition : — 
'  0  Lord  God  Almighty,  that  beholdest  all  my  ways,  I  find 
that  I  walk  in  the  midst  of  snares  and  temptations.  The 
great  Enemy  of  my  salvation,  with  his  retinue,  is  continually 
about  me,  and  watch  for  my  halting,  secretly  and  undiscover- 
ably  soliciting  my  soul  to  sin  against  Thee,  almost  in  every 
occurrence  of  my  life,  and  every  emotion  of  my  mind ;  and 
having  in  anything  prevailed  against  me,  either  he  quiets  my 


APPENDIX.  .        23.1 

Boul  in  my  sin,  or  disorders  my  soul  for  it ;  and,  by  both,  pre- 
vents or  diverts  me  from  coming  to  Thee  to  seek  my  pardon, 
as  a  thing  not  necessary  to  be  asked,  or  impossible  to  be  gained. 
Again,  the  inen,  among  whom  I  live,  scatter  their  tempta- 
tions for  me,  by  persuasions  to  sin,  by  evil  examples,  by  suc- 
cess in  sinful  practices  ;  and,  if  there  weiC  no  devil  or  man  to 
tempt  me,  yet  I  find  in  myself  an  everlasting  seed  of  tempta- 
tions, a  stock  of  corruptions  that  forms  all  1  am,  and  all  I  have 
or  do,  even  Thy  very  mercies,  into  temptations.  When  I  con- 
sider T]iy  'patience  and  goodness  to  me,  I  am  tempted  to  pre- 
sumption, to  supineness,  to  an  opinion  of  my  own  worth  ;  when 
I  consider  or  find  Thy  justice,  I  am  tempted  to  murmuring, 
to  despair,  to  think  the  most  Sovereign  Lord  a  hard  master. 
In  viy  understanding,  I  am  tempted  to  secret  argumentations, 
to  atheism,  to  infidelity,  to  dispute  Thy  truth,  to  curiosity,  to 
impertinent  or  forbidden  inquiries.  If  I  have  learning,  it 
makes  me  proud,  apt  to  despise  the  purity  and  simplicity  of 
Thy  truth,  to  contend  for  mastery  not  for  truth,  to  use  my  wit 
to  reason  myself  or  others  into  errors  or  sins,  to  spend  my  time 
in  those  discoveries  that  do  not  countervail  the  expense,  nor 
are  of  any  value  or  use  to  my  soul  after  death.  In  my  ivill, 
I  find  much  averseness  to  what  is  good,  a  ready  motion  to 
everything  that  is  evil,  or  at  least  an  uncertain  fluctuation 
between  both.  In  all  my  thoughts  I  find  abundance  of  van- 
ity ;  when  employed  to  any  thoughts  of  most  concernment 
about  my  soul,  full  of  inconsistency,  unfixed,  unsettled,  easily 
mingled  with  gross  apprehensions.  When  I  look  into  my 
conscience,  I  find  her  easily  bribed,  and  brought  over  to  the 
wrong  party,  allayed  with  self-love,  if  not  wholly  silent,  un- 
profitable and  dead.  In  my  affections,  I  find  continued  dis- 
order, easily  misplaced,  and  more  easily  overacted  bevond  the 
bounds  of  mod(?ration,  reason  and  wisdom,  much  more  of 
Christianity  and  Thy  fear.     In  my  sensual  appetites  I  find  a 


232  APPENDIX. 

continual  fog  and  vapor  rising  from  it,  disordering  my  soul  in 
all  I  am  about,  with  unseasonable,  importunate,  and  foul  ex- 
lialations,  that  darken  and  pollute  it ;  that  divert  and  disturb 
it  in  all  that  is  good,  that  continually  solicit  it  to  all  sensual 
evils,  unto  all  immoderation  and  excess.  In  my  se?7ses,  I  have 
an  eys  full  of  wantonness,  full  of  covetousness,  full  of  haughti- 
ness ;  an  ear  full  of  itching  after  novelties,  impertinencies, 
vanities ;  a  palate  full  of  intemperance,  studious  for  curiosi- 
ties ;  a  hand  full  of  violence,  when  it  is  in  my  power ;  a 
tongue  full  of  unnecessary,  vain  words,  apt  to  slander,  to 
whisper,  full  of  vain-glory  and  self-flattery.  If  thou  givcst 
me  a  healthy,  strong  body,  I  am  ready  to  be  proud  of  it ;  apt 
to  think  myself  out  of  the  reach  of  sickness  or  death  :  it  keeps 
me  from  thinking  of  my  latter  end,  or  providing  for  it ;  I  am 
ready  to  use  that  strength  to  the  service  of  sin,  with  better 
advantage,  more  excess,  and  less  remorse.  If  thou  visitest  me 
with  sickness,  I  am  surprised  with  peevishness,  impatience, 
with  solicitous  care  touching  my  estate,  and  posterity,  and 
recovery  ;  and  my  thoughts  concerning  Thee  are  less  frequent, 
less  profitable  than  before,  though  my  necessity  be  greater. 
If  Thou  givest  me  plenty,  I  am  apt  to  be  proud,  insolent ; 
confident  in  my  wealth,  reckoning  upon  it  as  my  treasure, 
think  every  thought  lost  that  is  not  employed  upon  it,  or,  in 
order  to  increase  it,  loth  to  think  of  death  or  judgment.  If 
Thou  visitest  me  with  poverty,  I  am  apt  to  murmur,  to  count 
the  rich  happy,  to  cast  ofi'  Thy  service  as  unprofitable,  to  look 
upon  my  everlasting  hopes  as  things  at  a  distance,  imaginary 
comforts  under  real  Avants.  If  Thou  givest  me  reputation 
and  esteem  in  the  world,  I  am  apt  to  make  use  of  it  to  beai 
me  out  at  a  pinch  ir.  some  unlawful  action,  to  use  it  to  mis- 
lead others,  to  use  any  base  shifts  to  support  it.  If  Thou  cast 
me  into  reproadi  and  ignominy,  my  heart  is  apt  to  swell 
against  the  means,  to  study  revenge,  and  to  die  with  my  repu- 


APPENDIX. 


233 


tation,  tliougli  it  may  causelessly  be  lost,  and  to  have  the 
thoughts  and  remembrances  of  it  to  interfere  and  grate  upon 
my  soul,  even  in  my  immediate  service  to  Thee  :  any  cross 
sours  my  blessings,  and  carries  my  heart  so  violently  into  dis- 
content, (for,  it  may  be,  a  single  affliction  which  1  deservedly 
suffer,)  that  I  forget  to  be  thankful  for  a  multitude  of  other 
mercies,  which  I  undeservedly  enjoy.  If  I  am  about  a  good 
duty,  I  find  my  heart  tempted  to  perform  them  carelessly, 
formally,  negligexitly,  hypocritically,  vain-gloriously,  for  false 
or  by-e  rds  ;  and  when  I  have  done  them,  my  heart  is  puffed 
up  with  pride,  opinion  of  merit  ;  looking  upon  my  Maker  as 
my  debtor  for  the  duty  I  owe  Him,  and  yet  but  slightly  and 
defectively  performed  to  Him.  How  then  can  I  expect  power 
from  myself  to  resist  a  temptation  without,  when  I  find  so 
much  treachery  within  me  ?  I  therefore  beseech  thee,  most 
merciful  and  powerful  Father,  to  send  into  my  heart  the  grace 
and  strength  of  Thy  blessed  Spirit  to  resist  and  overcome  all 
my  temptations,  to  cleanse  and  purge  this  foul  heart  of  mine, 
of  this  brood  and  nest  of  lust  and  corruptions  that  are  within 
it  ;  to  strengthen  myself  against  the  temptations  of  hell,  the 
world  and  myself ;  to  lead  me  in  safe  paths ;  to  discover  and 
admonish  me  hourly  of  all  the  dangers  that  are  in  my  way ; 
and  so  by  Thy  mighty  and  overruling  Providence  to  guide  rae 
that  I  may  avoid  all  occasions  of  falling ;  so  to  order,  and 
overrule  and  moderate,  and  temper  all  the  occurrences  of  my 
life,  that  they  may  be  suitable  to  that  grace  Thou  givest  me, 
to  bear  them  without  offending  Thee ;  and  if  thou  at  any 
time  suffer  me  to  take  a  fall,  yet  deliver  me  from  presumptu- 
ous sins,  give  me  a  heart  speedily  to  fly  to  Thee  for  strength 
to  restore  me,  for  mercy  to  pardon  me.'  " — Meditations  on  th& 
Lord's  Prayer,  pp.  278-282. 

The  preceding  extracts  show  what  a  study  and  science  with 


234  APPENDIX. 

Hale  it  was  to  ordcT  his  conversation  ariglit ;  and  how  the 
excellence  that  walked  in  snch  serene,  stainless  majesty  before 
the  world,  thrived  upon  and  grew  out  of  the  most  lowly  and 
contrite  acknowledgments  of  native  weakness  and  guilt  be- 
fore his  God.  The  calm  equipoise  externally  manifested  was 
the  crowning  result  of  earnest  warfare  within  ;  and  although 
in  his  relations  to  God  his  settled  peace  was  a  gift,  the  free 
boon  of  Divine  grace,  yet  seen  on  another  side,  and  in  his  re- 
lations to  mankind  and  himself,  that  peace  was  a  conquest, 
the  fruit  of  protracted  strife,  and  kept  by  unremitting  vigi- 
lance. 


Note  C— Page  183.— Lect.  VIII, 

"  Some  would  alter  the  rendering  here,  and  make  this  a 
-prayer  against  the  Evil  One^ 

Tholuck's  admirable  Commentary  upon  the  Sermon  oa 
the  Mount,  (Edinburgh  Bibl.  Cabinet,  vol.  xx.  p.  214,  &c.,) 
recounts  the  various  opinions  of  the  most  distinguished  expos- 
itors on  this  question.  He  decides  for  the  larger  and  indefi- 
nite sense,  making  it  inclusive  of  all  wickedness,  and  of  evil 
as  well  as  wickedness. 

Against  the  supposition  that  Satan  was  the  subject  of 
express  and  exclusive  reference  here,  Stier,  to  whose  work 
allusion  has  been  made  in  the  Preface,  enters  his  indignant 
protest.  (Stibr,  Reden  d.  Herrn  Jesu  I.  218.)  His  sense 
of  holy  fitness  revolts  at  the  thought,  that, — when  our  Saviour, 
although  Himself  the  Author,  and  the  Channel  and  the  End 
of  all  acceptable  prayer,  had,  as  was  natural  here,  left  out 
His  own  Name, — He  should  call  on  his  children  to  give  to 
His  and  their  enemy  Satan  the  honor  of  expressly  naming 
him.     Stier   suoposes  that  the   Christian  is,  indeed,   in  his 


APPENDIX,  236 

thoughts,  to  include  a  reference,  when  praying  against  Evil, 
to  the  Tempter,  its  promoter  and  Author,  but  any  such  explicit 
allusion,  or  word,  seems  to  him  utterly  inadmissible.  "  The 
Devil's  Kingdom"  is  to  be  put  down,  "the  Devil's  Will" 
thwai'ted  ;  but  he  is  not  to  have  such  honor,  or  God's  children 
endure  the  shame,  that  the  Enemy's  name  must,  in  this  briel 
prajer,  be  pronounced,  when  the  Redeemer's  own  is  with- 
holden. 

Among  the  many  instances  of  "  emendation"  for  the  worse 
in  Dr.  Conquest's  Bible,  "  with  nearly  twenty  thousand 
EMENDATIONS.  London,  1811,"  he  has  at  this  place,  "  Deliver 
us  from  the  Evil  One." 


Note  D.— Page  188.— Lect.  VIII. 
"  The  one  sad  wonoto/ioiis  cry :    "■  Deliver  us  from  Evil.'  " 

From  the  same  work  of  Maurice,  already  quoted,  we  annex 
the  following  remarks  upon  the  petition  for  Deliverance  from 
Evil  :— 

"  When  a  man  prays,  '  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,'  he 
prays  against  himself;  prays  that  he  may  not  go  where  he 
has  an  inclination  to  go ;  prays  that  neither  he  nor  his 
brethren  may  have  what  they  have  a  false  taste  for,  even 
though  God's  hand  seems  to  ofler  it  to  them.  Such  a  prayer 
till  we  know  something  of  ourselves,  something  of  His  pui-pose 
in  placing  us  here,  must  needs  appear  strange  and  perplexing. 
Is  not  the  or.e  which  follows  it  altogether  diflerent  ;  the 
simplest,  most  spontaneous  utterance  of  the  heart ;  one  which 
all  the  world  has  been  puiuing  forth  ;  Avhich  we  should  cer- 
tainly Jiave  learned  though  no  one  had  taught  it  to  us  ? 

"  It  would  be  idle,  indeed,  to  deny  the  universality  of  thia 
prajer,     Wherever  men   are  visited  by  any  storm  or  fire,  or 


236  APPENDIX. 

earthquake  ;  wlierever  they  are  plagued  with  any  bodily 
sickness  ;  wherever  they  are  oppressed  by  their  fellow-meu  ; 
wheiever  thjy  have  a  vague  sense  of  being  crushed  by  fortune  ; 
wherever  they  have  learnt  to  look  upon  custom  or  law  as  an 
incubus ;  wherever  they  are  stifled  by  systems  ;  wherever 
they  are  conscious  of  a  remorse  which  stays  with  them  and 
moves  with  them  ;  there  is  a  cry  ascending  to  some  power 
known  or  unknown,  '  Deliver  us  from  Evil,'  The  question 
what  evil  is  and  whence  it  comes,  is  for  such  sufferers  of  easy 
solution  ;  they  know  well  what  they  mean  by  it ;  they  know 
or  guess  generally  what  brought  it  to  them,  at  all  events  it 
has  overtaken  them.  They  may  suppose  that  some  fellow- 
creature  can  rescue  them  from  it,  or  chance,  or  themselves  ; 
they  may  look  to  the  physician,  the  priest,  the  legislator ;  to 
alterations  in  government  ;  to  new  dispositions  of  property  ; 
to  a  friendly  executioner ;  to  suicide.  But  a  deliverer  there 
must  be  ;  something  or  some  person  to  hope  in.  If  once  we 
believe  evil  to  be  omnipotent,  or  suppose  that  it  was  intended 
for  us,  and  we  for  it,  I  do  not  think  it  possible  to  conceive  of 
human  society  or  human  life.  Recollect  the  worship  of  every 
country  you  ever  heard  of,  how  many  names  or  characteristics 
of  the  different  divinities  had  relation  to  the  deliverance  or 
to  the  averting  or  the  avenging  of  wrong.  If  you  took  these 
away  from  the  mythologies,  you  would  find  that  there 
remained  a  mere  caput  mortuum ;  all  that  had  held  them 
together  and  appealed  to  human  trust  and  sympathies  would 
have  escaped. 

"  Now  it  would  surely  be  a  very  hard  and  stoical  doctrine  to 
proclaim  that  what  these  different  creatures  of  our  flesh  and 
blood  have  cried  to  be  saved  from,  were  not  really  evils,  hut 
only  certain  conditions  of  existence,  which  they  fancied  to  be 
such.  No  one,  I  should  think,  can  imagine  that  he  served 
truth  by  maintaining  such  a  proposition  against  the  sense  oi 


APPENDIX.  237 

mankind,  and  against  the  witness  of  his  own  heart.  That 
from  which  men  have  revolted  as  utterly  vmnatural  and  in- 
consistent and  unreasonable,  that  which  they  have  felt  to  be 
in  positive  disagreement  with  their  constitution,  they  have  a 
right  to  call  an  evil ;  and  all  the  theories,  political,  philo- 
sophical, religious,  in  the  world,  can  never  deprive  them  of  the 
right.  Nor  can  these  theories,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  prove  even 
the  most  extravagant  hopes  that  our  race  have  indulged  to 
be  utterly  vain  and  delusive,  or  take  from  any  man  the  right 
to  seek  deliverance  from  human  helpers,  kings,  lawgivers, 
shepherds  of  the  people  ;  from  his  own  strong  arm,  from 
invisible  helpers,  from  some  fate  that  is  higher,  sterner,  more 
inflexible  than  all  other  powers.  Thei-e  was  a  warrant  for 
all  such  hopes,  even  for  hope  from  the  last  resource  of  self- 
destruction.  We  have  no  right  to  take  away  such  refuges 
until  we  can  provide  a  better ;  and  it  is  at  least  probable  that 
if  a  better  be  found,  we  shall  find  some  explanation  of  all  the 
rest. 

"  We  may  readily  grant  them,  not  only  that  the  prayer  has 
been  offered  in  all  places  and  in  all  ages,  but  that  in  all 
places  and  in  all  ages  a  deep  truth  has  been  expressed  in  it. 
But  do  we,  therefore,  say  that  the  prayer,  had  no  need  to  be 
taught,  that  it  sprang  up  naturally  in  the  mind  of  man  with- 
out any  inspiration  from  above,  that  it  was  not  like  the 
former,  the  petition  of  a  man  against  himself,  but  altogether 
one  from  and  for  himself?  I  rather  think  the  evidence,  if  it 
is  well  considered,  will  lead  us  just  to  the  opposite  conclusion  ; 
that  the  prayer  was,  in  all  cases,  taught  and  inspired  from 
above  ;  that  what  was  contributed  to  it  by  the  natural  heart 
of  man  in  his  different  circumstances  and  positions,  was  just 
the  false,  confused  element  of  it,  just  that  which  narroM^ed  its 
scope  and  divided  its  object ;  that  ia  its  true  sense  and  pur- 
port it  is  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  cry  against  temptation  ; 


238  APPENDIX. 

that  He  who  imparted  it  to  men  in  the  cid  time  was  Ho  who 
gave  it  to  His  disciples  in  its  clearness  and  purity,  in  its  length 
and  hreadth  when  He  said,  '  After  this  manner  pray  ye  :  Our 
Father — deliver  us  from  evil.' 

"  Other  portions  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  have  led  me  to  remark, 
that  thei'e  is  a  feai-ful  tendency  in  us  all,  which  has  infused 
itself  most  mischievously  into  our  theology,  to  look  first  at 
our  necessity  or  misery,  only  afterwards  at  our  relation  to 
God,  and  at  His  nature.  The  last  are  made  dependent  upon 
the  former.  We  are  conscious  of  a  derangement  in  our  con- 
dition ;  simply  in  reference  to  this  derangement  do  we  con- 
template Him  who  we  hope  may  reform  it.  We  have  just 
been  tracing  this  process  in  heathenism.  A  mischief  is  felt ; 
if  there  is  a  mischief  there  must  be  a  deliverer.  Undoubtedly 
the  conscience  bears  this  witness,  and  it  is  a  right  one.  But 
the  qualities  of  the  deliverer  are  determined  by  the  character 
or  locality  of  that  which  is  to  be  redressed,  or  by  the  habits 
of  those  who  are  sufiering  from  it.  From  this  heathenish 
habit  of  mind  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  the  great  preserver.  Say 
first,  '  Our  Father.'  This  relation  is  fixed,  established, 
certain.  It  existed  in  Christ  before  all  worlds,  it  was  mani- 
fested when  He  came  in  the  flesh.  He  is  ascended  on  high, 
that  we  may  claim  it.  Let  us  be  certain  that  we  ground  all 
our  thoughts  upon  these  opening  words ;  till  we  know  them 
well  by  heart,  do  not  let  us  listen  to  the  rest.  Let  us  go  on 
carefully,  step"  by  step,  to  the  Name,  the  Kingdom,  the  Will, 
assuring  ourselves  of  our  footing,  confident  that  we  are  in  a 
region  of  clear  unmixed  goodness  ;  of  goodness  which  is  io  be 
hallowed  by  us  ;  which  has  come  and  shall  come  to  us,  and 
in  us ;  which  is  to  be  done  on  earth,  not  merely  in  Heaven. 
Then  we  are  in  a  condition  to  make  these  petitions,  which  we 
are  ordinarily  in  such  haste  to  utter,  and  which  He,  in  whom 
all  wisdom  dwells,  commands  us  to  defer.     Last  of  all  coiues 


APPENDIX.  239 

this  '  Deliver  us  from  Evil.'  When  we  are  able  tc  look 
upon  evil,  not  as  the  regular  normal  state  of  the  universe,  hut 
as  absolutely  at  variance  with  tlie  character  of  its  Author, 
with  Ilis  constitution  of  it,  with  tlie  Spirit  which  He  has  given 
to  \is,  then  we  can  pray,  attaching  some  real  significance  to 
the  language,  Deliver  us  from  it.  Then  we  shall  understand 
why  men  looked  with  faith  to  the  aid  of  their  fellow-men  ;  to 
princes,  and  chieftains,  and  lawgivers,  and  sages.  They  were 
Bent  into  the  world  for  this  end,  upon  this  mission.  They 
were  meant  to  act  as  deliverers.  They  were  to  be  witnesses 
of  a  real  righteous  order,  and  to  resist  all  transgressors  of  it. 
VVe  can  understand  why  strong  men  felt  that  they  had  better 
act  for  themselves,  than  depend  upon  foreign  help.  For  the 
Father  of  all  put  their  sti'ength  into  them,  that  they  might 
wield  it  as  His  servants  in  His  work ;  it  was  His  Spirit  who 
made  them  conscious  of  their  strength,  and  of  that  purpose 
for  which  they  were  to  use  it.  We  can  see  why  these  hopes 
were  so  continually  disappointed  though  they  had  so  right  a 
foundation  ;  why  they  were  driven  to  think  of  higher  aid,  of 
invisible  champions,  because  those  upon  the  earth  proved 
feeble,  or  deserted  the  cause,  and  served  themselves.  It  is 
true  that  the  hosts  of  heaven  are  obeying  that  power  which 
the  hosts  of  earth  are  commanded  to  obey; -that  they  are 
doing  His  service  by  succoring  those  who  are  toiling  below  ; 
it  is  true,  because  He  who  rules  all  is  not  a  destiny,  but  a 
loviiig  will  ;  not  an  abstraction,  but  a  person  ;  not  a  mere 
sovereign,  but  a  Father.  All  creation  is  ordered  upon  tliis 
law  of  mutual  dependence  and  charity ;  but  it  is  only  in  the 
knowledge  and  worship  of  the  Highest,  that  we  can  apprehend 
the  places  and  tasks  of  the  lower ;  when  He  is  hidden,  these 
are  forgotten  ;  society  becomes  incoherent  ;  nothing  under- 
stands itself;  everything  is  inverted  ;  the  deliverer  is  one 
with  the    tyrant  ;  evil    and  good  run  into  each  other  ;  we 


240  APPENDIX, 

nvoke  Satan  to  cast  out  Satan.  See,  then,  wnat  a  restom 
tive,  regenerative  power  lies  in  this  prayer!  See  what  need 
there  was  that  the  Son  of  God  should  come  from  the  bosom 
of  tke  Father,  to  make  men  know  that  they  were  not  orphans, 
to  show  how  they  might  be  in  act,  and  not  merely  in  idea, 
children  !  "—Maurice,  pp.  103-108. 

Unless  we  misread  his  purpose,  this  gifted  and  compre- 
hensive thinker  has  had  in  view,  throughout  the  preceding 
sentences,  the  principles  of  Hero  Worship*  which  seem  to 
pervade  the  powerful  writings  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  the 
Essays  of  his  American  disciple,  Emerson.  And  the  views 
of  the  Christian  philosopher  have  to  us  a  breadth  and  com- 
pleteness, and  consistency  as  to  the  design  of  Providence  in 
raising  up  such  sages  and  rulers,  the  gifted  leaders  of  their 
fellows,  which  are  lacking  in  the  rugged  and  bold,  but  frag- 
mentary, and  even  contradictory  portraitures  of  Heroes  by 
the  writers  above  named.  They  picture  vividly  headlands  ; 
but  betwixt  these  all  is  chaos.  He  maps  the  coast  that 
includes  and  connects  these,  the  currents  sweeping  past  them, 
and  the  shoals  or  reefs  that  may  lie  in  their  shadow.  The 
one  class  of  thinkers  paint  a  Panorama  that  leaves  its  impres- 
sions indeed ;  but  they  are  transient,  and  practically  of  little 
avail.  The  other  furnishes  a  chart,  which  the  voyager  may 
daily  study,  and  in  the  use  of  which  he  is  not  in  danger  of 
mistaking  the  Maelstrom  of  Pantheism  for  the  current  that  is 
to  bear  him  to  his  desired  haven  and  home.  The  one  class 
seem  virtually  but  to  leave  as  their  lesson,  the  need  of  blind 
homage  and  subjugation  to  earth's  great  men  ;  a  vague  prayer 
for  the  Coming  Man  of  the  age,  and  an  oath  of  allegiance 
sworn  to  him  in  advance.  The  other  shows  the  right  and 
joy  of  trusting  and  adoring  the  Greater  God,  Him,  once  in- 
*  See  p.  40. 


APPENDIX.  241 

deed  known  as  the  Coming  Man — "  He  that  was  to  come" — 
but  now  proclaimed  as  surely  and  fully  Come — the  God- 
Man, — the  world's  one  Great  Deliverer  and  Redeemer — the 
Maker  and  Controller  and  Final  Judge  of  earth's  greatest 
ones,  absolute  sovereign  of  the  captains  and  teachers  who 
have  been  the  worst  and  the  best  of  the  earth's  human  celebri- 
ties. The  one  class  dazzle  our  eyes  with  gorgeous  fire-works, 
but  they  are  "of  the  earth,  earthy,"  soaring  for  a  short  flight, 
and  a  speedy  fall.  The  other  shows  the  old,  steadfast  stars 
shining  behind  the  transient  glitter,  and  points  us  to  the  streaks 
in  the  east  of  that  Sun  of  Righteousness,  whose  glorious  rising, 
"  with  healing  in  His  wings,"  is  to  drown  all  these  lesser 
splendors ;  the  Coming  God,  whose  appearance  in  judgment 
shall  close  and  vindicate  the  mysteries  of  His  earthly  Provi- 
dence 


/ 


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